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Sometimes, I swear, I need to be careful what I ask for. After the umpteenth gorgeous, soprano-mewing goth-metal pin-up, I threw up my hands in titillated disgust and begged the metal gods for a genre entity that didn’t offer up a basically utilitarian frontwoman who aspired to be metal’s version of Betty Grable or Rita Hayworth. The gods responded with Ayin Aleph, presumably chortling at me all the while. Here we have a Russian-born, Hebrew-monikered, schizophrenic madwoman of a vocal talent, backed by two members of French avant-death nutters Misanthrope and UK genre journeyman Mark Mynett. The lady herself is unquestionably gifted but prone to fits of histrionic caterwauls, throaty groans and breathy gasps so bizarre that they make Diamanda Galas and Jarboe seem like Wilson Phillips by comparison. Ayin’s vocal choices are almost Buñuelian or Lynchian in their aversion to narrative flow, melodic consonance, linguistic consistency or admittedly subjective “pleasurableness.” The music itself is similarly disjointed, stop-start, piano-plonked schadenfreude being the order of the day, though not to the point where I can’t point out numerous gothic/symphonic tropes beneath all the avant-garde hokum. Somewhere within the derring-do and daring for daringness’ sake is a shockingly average musical program, which is the bitter irony of it all. Weird yet ordinary. At a staggering eighty-minute album length, it descends into a sisyphean endeavor worthy of Steve Albini’s double-helix assessment of Liz Phair and Rickie Lee Jones. "A fucking chore to listen to," indeed.
| Tracklist |
| 1. Hamlet |
| 2. My Bloody Marriage |
| 3. Aleph |
| 4. Grey Ashes |
| 5. Butterfly |
| 6. Bridge |
| 7. Valpurgis Night |
| 8. Sebastian's Prayer |
| 9. Army of Love |
| 10. My Blood Marriage II |
| 11. The Purchase of the Cathedral |
| 12. Black Roses |
| 13. Unnamed |
| 14. Es Muss Sein |
| 15. Alcove Rhapsody |
| 16. I Came |
| 17. Greed |
| 18. The End |
| 19. I Miss You |
: 79:43
| Buy other Ayin Aleph albums |
