Ex-Pumpkin debuts a doozy
"Auf der Maur"
Melissa Auf der Maur
(Capitol)
If you want to hear a bit of Melissa Auf der Maur's musical bloodline, the hidden track at the end of her debut album will clue you in. It's a home cassette recording of her grandmother yodeling so tunelessly as to be both otherworldly and hilarious at the same time.
The same can be said for "Auf der Maur," except Melissa's a more serviceable singer. First released in the U.K. last year and getting into U.S. stores just yesterday, this well-crafted album rocks as hard as anything the Pumpkins and Queens of the Stone Age ever put out (no surprise, since James Iha, Josh Homme, the recently departed Nick Oliveri and producer Chris Goss all helped, as well as former Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson). Combine that with Auf der Maur's loopy lyrics and you've got an over-the-top album that's unlike anything that's out right now.
Montreal-born to artistically inclined parents (dad was a Renaissance type of guy, both a journalist and politician, and mom the city's first female rock deejay), the former photography student and rock bassist joined Courtney Love's Hole after Kristen Pfaff died of a drug overdose. After five years, she left, only to join Smashing Pumpkins on their farewell tour, due to former bassist D'Arcy's own drug woes.
Taking a year break after the Pumpkins' disbandment in 2000, Auf der Maur went on to shape what she calls her self-financed "dream record." And it's a doozy!
"Auf der Maur" is one sweeping emotional spectacle of sound, with occasional stops in pure eccentricity, specifically in the woozy, tongue-in-cheek madness of "I'll Be Anything You Want" and the naked, raw frailty of the voice-and-piano found on "Overpower Thee."
The album's leadoff single/video "Followed the Waves" starts with Auf der Maur channeling her beloved grandmum with her own mad yodel before the song's thick, rolling rock comes crashing through like a storm of desire.
It's exemplary of the dreamy delirium that swirls throughout the album. When it works, as with the opening track "Lightning Is My Girl," "Taste You" (reprised with the French-language version as a bonus U.S. track), "My Foggy Notion" and "Would If I Could," it makes for a crackin' good time. And even when it gets a bit too-too ("Head Unbound," "Beast of Honor," the galloping "Skin Receiver" and the psychedelicized "I Need I Want I Will"), they're just pieces of the entire satisfying whole.
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