Elvis Perkins - “Ash Wednesday”
March 29th, 2007
Elvis Perkins has a legitimate claim to the melancholy singer songwriter thing: His father, the actor Anthony Perkins, died of AIDS when Elvis was seventeen, and his mother was killed on one of the planes on September 11th, 2001. Perkins alludes to his past obliquely, but it’s hard to avoid — for one, the album title appears to refer to the day after 9/11. “While You Were Sleeping” has a trancelike feel and chilling lyrics (”I made a death suit for life/For my father’s ill- widowed wife”). Most tracks stick to a downbeat, acoustic-folk template, although “May Day!” sounds like a lost Neutral Milk Hotel hoedown. On the standout “Emile’s Vietnam in the Sky,” which mixes French dialogue with fiddle and accordion accents, Perkins asks, “Do you ever wonder where you go when you die?” He has.
DAVID SWANSON
Taken from: rollingstone.com
Entry Filed under: Reviews
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