Everyone. Stop what you are doing and read this review of our little orphan's new record
Caterwaul. Unless of course you are already reading the review, in which case, carry on.
Some highlights:
"
In person, he’s a lanky wet-dog of a man..."
"The cultured beanpole has an impressive sense of humor..."
No, but seriously... check this out:
" The wrenching yet literary songs on Caterwaul are lush with narrative power and meticulous detail. Sprysenski’s septic imagery is lovingly, artfully rendered in what he aptly calls “gutter romanticism.” His crooked rasp evokes Tom Waits. Neutral Milk Hotel can be heard in the delicate, unexpected instrumental gestures. His impassioned delivery is rooted in a true kind of emo, like Sunny Day Real Estate or the Promise Ring.
But the congress of these things, along with his outsider’s point of view, is an experimental folk that rattles and shivers.
The songs take quixotic turns, and Sprysenski’s singing can go from whiskeyed storytelling to childish rumination to madman outbursts (“Chicken Legs”). The music is unconventional but never awkward, as he demonstrates a keen sense of melody (“Berlin”).
The result is an odd sort of beautiful, and Caterwaul is a work that marks Sprysenski as one of the city’s most visceral songwriters. In a moon where style and sheen is the order of the day, his intensely direct viewpoint punches through the dulling white noise like knife-cold water to the face.
Sprysenski sees the power and poetry in that most human of qualities: imperfection. It’s a concept that both his life and his art harness and celebrate in true flagellant form."
I wrote a review for it too... but it was just a drawing i did of a dragon with the word "rad" on it.
Read the whole review HERE.
Happy Valley showed up on the doorstep of the orphanage, not in tattered rags with dirt on their little faces - but in space suits with laser cannons and complex math books. Needless to say, we took them in before someone saw them and like, totally freaked out or something.
