Battle of Mice A Day of Nights Label: Neurot Release Date:10/31/2006

It’s already been established on this website that Made Out of Babies/Battle of Mice vocalist Julie Christmas is “awesome”, but let’s explore exactly what inspires such awe. Whether she’s whispering murder conspiracies, singing like the angel of mercy on judgment day or screaming from the deepest realms of her soul, Julie captures every real ounce of human emotion in her otherworldly voice. I would go so far as to say that she does it even better on A Day of Nights than she did on Made Out of Babies’ Coward- if only because she shows her full range completely unrestrained.

Backed by atmospheric sounds that move from shoegaze to metal to classical without missing a beat, Julie is free to alternate from angel to devil, virgin to whore, lover to killer- and she is really, really good at this. On “Bones in the Water” Julie whispers mysteriously about pushing lovers down stairs and leaving coded fingerprints on their windowsills. It’s creepy because I believe every minute of it. “Wrapped in Plain” opens with beautiful pianos and blissful guitars as Julie emotes about a battered woman’s death- only I think she means that death in the metaphorical sense. I think. Her signature growls and screams are virtually nonexistent on this track, instead her voice is transcendent and heartbreaking. We’re talking Bjork beautiful here, people. When the guitars get heavier and fuzzier her voice gets higher, sending chills up your spine until your eyeballs pop out. Whew.

Then there’s “At the Base of the Giant’s Throat”. There aren’t words for this masterpiece. It bounces from apocalyptic doom to euphoric shoegaze (and does both beautifully) while Julie exorcises her inner demons, exuding both scared little girl and scornful mother on one entrancing song. But there’s more. After the angst fueled post-rock bridge and the atmospheric outro, “At the Base of the Giant’s Throat” launches into a disturbing recording of a (hopefully) fake and very, very disturbing 911 call. I found myself clenching my teeth the whole time.

As aggressive as it is demure and as frightening as it is frightened, A Day of Nights is a somewhat difficult monster. But that’s because this type of raw passion is so rare in music that it frightens us to our inner being. And that is really “awesome”.

Battle of Mice - Myspace

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 12:40 am and is filed under CD/LP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.