Morgan is weird. It's hard to describe in exactly what way her music is weird. I mean, I could say that she sounds like dark symphonic pop-metal mixed with nightmare cabaret mixed with 1950s lounge singers mixed with Amy Winehouse, but that doesn't actually mean anything unless you're intimately familiar with all those genres and performers AND have a good musical imagination. And if that's the case, then you've probably already heard of the Album and are getting some tracks off YouTube as you read. For the rest of us, I'll have to do a whole damn article.
I first discovered "...and the moon was hungry...", her album with The Romanovs (which she fronts), through Pandora. Honestly, I discover most music through Pandora these days, and I'm usually impressed and heartened to discover the degree to which tiny and otherwise totally unknown performers have penetrated the medium. "King" was the song that got me to create a new station based on it, which is always a good sign when that happens. This track sounded a lot like half the tracks on Fallen by Evanescence, and yet despite what you might think that's actually a compliment coming from me. I really liked the album and still do.
I expected more of that kind of heavy and layered harmonic sound from the other tracks, but was pleasantly disappointed on hearing tracks like "China Shop". This is where the piano comes to the front, and her strategic use of expletives and silent spaces speaks to Amy Winehouse. Sometimes that silence can seem a little jarring when it comes in the midst of that heavy layering, like on "Kiss", but maybe that's the point. Kiss is actually the weirdest track, the one that convinced me to write this review rather than a short paragraph as an incitation to listen. I can't place it. At one point it descends into a folk-carnival dance that seems appropriately out of place, as though we've been trained to expect the unexpected. Nevertheless, the album seems to always return to the dark layering reminiscent of the best of Evanescence, but with beautifully obtuse lyrics.
It's no coincidence that the most common artist to come up on my Pandora station inspired by her is Florence + The Machine. This might be the best way to describe The Romanovs. But if Florence is the sun, burning bright in majesty, then Morgan is the moon, covering us in milky shadows. She's the glorious and sickly negative of Florence. Morgan is quiet when Florence is loud, loud when she's quiet; Morgan inspires doubt where Florence gives us confidence. Florence lifts us up; Morgan drags us down to drown in her aural swamp. And what a sweet drowning it is. To borrow a phrase: 10/10; would drown again.
I expected more of that kind of heavy and layered harmonic sound from the other tracks, but was pleasantly disappointed on hearing tracks like "China Shop". This is where the piano comes to the front, and her strategic use of expletives and silent spaces speaks to Amy Winehouse. Sometimes that silence can seem a little jarring when it comes in the midst of that heavy layering, like on "Kiss", but maybe that's the point. Kiss is actually the weirdest track, the one that convinced me to write this review rather than a short paragraph as an incitation to listen. I can't place it. At one point it descends into a folk-carnival dance that seems appropriately out of place, as though we've been trained to expect the unexpected. Nevertheless, the album seems to always return to the dark layering reminiscent of the best of Evanescence, but with beautifully obtuse lyrics.
It's no coincidence that the most common artist to come up on my Pandora station inspired by her is Florence + The Machine. This might be the best way to describe The Romanovs. But if Florence is the sun, burning bright in majesty, then Morgan is the moon, covering us in milky shadows. She's the glorious and sickly negative of Florence. Morgan is quiet when Florence is loud, loud when she's quiet; Morgan inspires doubt where Florence gives us confidence. Florence lifts us up; Morgan drags us down to drown in her aural swamp. And what a sweet drowning it is. To borrow a phrase: 10/10; would drown again.
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