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The Players:
Eddie O - Vocals
Johnny Burke - Guitar
Jeff Rodriguez - Bass
Chris Cano – Percussion, Synth, Programming, Acoustic guitar
Complaints Dept. – Where’s the sitar?
The Mansions are damn cool. Charms plays on
all my 80’s goth/wave weaknesses. It’s exhilarating like hearing
Elastica for the first time and recognizing it isn’t
the first time. It hails back to those important times in
my life when it was enjoyable wallowing in misery and rebellion
spelled out in eyeliner. Ignore for the most part, all the
Bauhaus comparisons slapped on them. There’s a taste
of Peter Murphy in the vocals, but not enough to raise
a fuss about. The tunes are melodic. The playing is original
and catchy as hell.
"Brave New World" builds to a soar into a downfall
progression like a slow-dance at the prom. The synthesizers
are taunting, hitting that spot that you hold secretly dear.
The swirling psychedelic guitars, as well as Eddie’s vocal
lines, bring to mind The Church in their Heyday.
It’s a lush multi-leveled sound segmented smartly to hold
you in. The ultra cool B-movie theramin-inspired keys in "Rock
& Roll" put an urgency to the tension from the band.
The gear-shifting supports the uncontrollable mood of the
trashy story, "This life’s a peep-show, ain’t no cabaret."
There’s a contagious desperation in search of deliverance.
Rich textures on the slowed down "Under The Sky"
make for a sweetly straining nostalgia. Velvet red shades
form ripples from the organ and ringing guitar. Melodramatic
and sweeping like some of Marc Almond’s darker work.
Olguin’s British affectations come across comfortably rather
than pretentious.
Bouncy synths and T-Rex phrasings on "Z-28"
are sleazy loads of fun. OK, so a little Murphy similarities
here, but equal parts Classix Nouveaux in threat. Different
vocal effects flavor this sing-along. Eddie gets snotty and
whiny as needed between growls. The new romantic cityscape
"Love And Other Rituals" is a little echoey and
a lot Bunnymen. It’s a rainy song pretty enough to
dance slowly clinging desperately to your other. Layer upon
layer of lush instrumentation takes you to the plateau. It
sounds like part of a soundtrack to a lost John Hughes
movie. The well-crafted anthem "Sirens" seems to
rally the club kids with malevolent tinges of Shriekback,
"I think we took it a little a little too far now.
But this time I swear it was accidental. Yes, I know how,
and I want to show you. But nothing in the dark is coincidental."
Wherever "The Drive" is heading, I don’t want
to be the unwary passenger. The synthetic strings slice like
Norman Bates through the curtain of guitars, thick
with theatrics that make you yell, "Look out!" at
the screen. Through the ill intentions of "Beyond The
Satellites", the singer’s idle assurances that "Things
are getting better now" lend little comfort. He comes
across like Jack Nicholson promising, "I’m not
gonna hurt ya." Some movie mogul in LA-LA land needs
to make "Oblivious" the next "Red Right Hand."
The sinister keys build into a serrated guitar lick. Then
it explodes like the cool part of "Live And Let Die."
Rodriguez kicks out a bass line that sticks fiercely. According
to the epic, "Little Atomic Bomb," the boys have
come up with a solution to the stifling mood in LA. Thankfully,
they have found a little space to explore in the sparsely
populated song. Driven by Cano’s inventive drumming, the guitars
stretch and swell from chaotic discordance into acoustic peacefulness.
It plays like the arid aftermath of their handiwork, scanning
the emptiness until it zeroes in on the sole inhabitant. The
payoff is as lush and satisfying as it is disturbing. The
Mansions’ ability to manipulate the dynamics is a good sign
they will be around past this album. The band works together
nicely to build their twisted vision.
On the spooky mansion scale, one=Haunted Mansion Mystery:
and ten=Uninvited, Charms For Love And Revenge rates
a nine: House On Haunted Hill (original)
— Ewan Wadharmi
Track Listing:
- Brave New World
- Rock & Roll
- Under The Sky
- Z-28
- Love And Other Human Rituals
- Sirens
- The Drive
- Beyond The Satellites
- Oblivious
- Little Atomic Bomb
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