### Sarah Jezebel Deva: A sign of sublime

#### 28/04/10 || GardensTale

You readers are lucky people. You can just sit back and open up your ears and let all the good music pour in after we painstakingly write our reviews to make sure you listen to the good stuff. I know from the forums that this effort of ours is greatly appreciated time and time again, but boy, sometimes it’s a real fucking sour grape we need to bite through for your reading and listening pleasure.

Case in point, Sarah Jezebel “it’s a whale get the harpoons” Deva. This BBW (Big Butt-ugly Woman) appears to have made quite a name for herself, considering her lengthy career in Cradle of Filth and Therion. Alright, only one of those actually gets any respect these days, but the point is, she should have at least some clue on what’s what. She should at least be able to make a borderline listenable record, right?

Fuck no!

Although that was actually my first thought, in spite of a little voice screaming the word “pretentious” in the back of my head over and over again. It has about ten times bigger a computer generated orchestra than it needs or should have, but alright, that’s stomach-able. The songwriting is about as bland as you could expect from a current Cradle of Filth member, but at least it avoids being downright grating, right?

Fuck no!

I actually don’t even like the term “pretentious”. I believe it’s extremely overused, and many of the bands others consider pretentious I can enjoy with no problem at all. I heard it drop at Guilt Machine before, and fuck you if you think so. But here, there’s just no way to get around it. The digital orchestra, the ‘epic’ (read: slow) pace, the stretched whale wails, all that wouldn’t have necessarily been pretentious if she had the songwriting to back it up. And what do you expect, can she back up all the bells and whistles?

FUCK!

NO!

Pretentious, literally taken, means pretending to be better than you are. SJD embodies this with her solo debut. The insane amount of neonlight symphonics are supposed to cover up a lack of ability to write songs that are actually interesting, albeit they actually point it out rather than cover it up. It’s like when you murder someone in a filthy apartment, and you clean up the bloodstains too well, you get squeaky clean spots here and there, bound to stand out as a clue to the CSI team. The occasional tremolo riff just sounds like it’s been derived from her main gig and only accentuates the shortcomings of the album.

This is why I started off with a “very boring but not terrible” feeling. At first you only hear the global sound, and yawn half-hearted, preparing for an album that’ll mainly be generic and boring. But the pancake-flat songwriting and half-hearted pace are grating like sandpaper dipped in acid used on your ballsack. About three songs in, you’re grinding your teeth against the sheer annoyance. But hey, at least Deva can sing, right?

Fuck no!

I thought so too. I’d heard good things about her work in Therion from reliable sources. But Cradle of Filth hasn’t done her much good, and her voice is as flat as the songwriting. There’s an ugly nasal pinch in there, the high notes scrape against the inside of the skull, and now and then she tries something weird like a very sudden pitch shift or a weird half-pant and none of it works out in her favor. I even hate her overpronunciation.

And to top everything off, the atrocious album, the review and hopefully, the artist, check out these absolutely fucking horrendous lyrics to the closing ballad. If this doesn’t convince you to stay away from this album, nothing will.

Your momma don’t stop crying, don’t ask me why And your family don’t stop asking questions Maybe she’s just lonely cause daddy’s never there And whenever he is there’s always tension You sit in the corner cause you got no friends (Are you bloody kidding me with this shit?!) And you’re scared someone will beat you Hey, let’s play happy families And pretend that someone needs you

I cannot stomach this piece of shit with gold syrup any longer. It might be overused and might often be used inappropriate, but besides “grating”, “annoying” and “pancake-fucking-flat”, the only word for this crap would be:

PRETENTIOUS.

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Rising Records
- Website: Sarah Jezebel Deva MySpace
- Band
- Sarah Jezebel Deva: vocals
- Ken Newman: guitars
- Martin Powell: keys
- Dave Pybus: bass
- Max Blunos: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Genesis
- 02. A Sign of Sublime
- 03. She Stands Like Stone
- 04. The Devil’s Opera
- 05. They Called Her Lady Tyranny
- 06. The Road to Nowhere
- 07. Your Woeful Chair
- 08. A Newborn Failure
- 09. Daddy’s Not Coming Home