{"id":565,"date":"2011-07-29T05:51:02","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T10:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=565"},"modified":"2011-07-29T05:51:02","modified_gmt":"2011-07-29T10:51:02","slug":"ep-review-the-wicked-whispers-the-dark-delights-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/29\/ep-review-the-wicked-whispers-the-dark-delights-of\/","title":{"rendered":"EP Review: The Wicked Whispers – The Dark Delights of\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take the edge-of-macabre organ stylings of The Doors<\/strong> and apply it to a slowly swaying, retro-jangle with a British accent. Add some plaintive harmonies and a slightly modern sensibility a la House of Fire<\/strong>\u2019s overlooked 2008 album, and what you end up with is Wicked Whispers<\/em>. On their debut EP The Dark Delights of the Wicked Whispers<\/em>, the group is careful not to offer up anything too new, and that will suit plenty of listeners just fine. They\u2019re from Liverpool, but they don\u2019t sound a whole lot like what they call \u201cthat other group\u201d from their hometown.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a dreamy, swirling ambience on all five tracks. A bit of sunshine pop creeps in, but the group\u2019s sound remains solidly structured around the broken-chord Farfisa organ work of leader\/songwriter Michael Murphy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

With a title like \u201cAmanda Lavender\u201d you\u2019ll have some idea what to expect. The song gently ebbs and flows, and there are many elements here to hook the listener: the organ lick and the chorus harmonies are but two.<\/p>\n

\u201cHouse of Peppermint\u201d kicks off sounding a bit too much like \u201cAmanda Lavender, Part Two\u201d with different lyrics. Same key, similar organ run. As the track unfolds, it goes some slightly different places, but one wonders if some more creative track sequencing should have been considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlying Round in Circles\u201d changes key and time signature, thank goodness. The waltzing number has a vaguely folk-rocking edge (or, more precisely, lack of edge), not wholly unlike Fairport Convention<\/strong>\u2026with a Farfisa.<\/p>\n

On \u201cOdyssey Mile\u201d the band finally kicks into gear, employing a stomping beat (and even a brief bass solo line), but any potential heaviness is leavened by Murphy’s \u201criding on a unicorn\u201d lyric (no, really<\/em>). But befitting that other group\u2019s legacy, the four songs on The Dark Delights of the Wicked Whispers<\/em> are short and to the point. Time will tell if the band is able to expand on their approach and craft a full album\u2019s worth of music. The style\u2019s great and the execution is precise; it\u2019s more variety that\u2019s needed. Worth watching.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take the edge-of-macabre organ stylings of The Doors and apply it to a slowly swaying, retro-jangle with a British accent. Add some plaintive harmonies and a slightly modern sensibility a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}