Azure Ray - Azure Ray, and Burn and Shiver

Since my first listen of the first track, “Sleep,” on this 2001 album, I’ve been convinced that Azure Ray is a dangerous drug. The haunting, deceptively simple dreampop and slurred, breathy vocals of Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor call out to you like the fairies in the garden, and before you know it you’ve skipped out on your responsibilities and are just laying there in your bed with your headphones on, listening again and again and again. They will make you think about the things you lost in your life, without offering any resolution. In “Don’t Make a Sound,” they really drive it home. “The sun is out, but happiness only reminds you of the people you hurt, mistakes that you made when you were down.” It’s like the whole album is about crushing, paralyzing depression. In “Rise,” they caution you against trying to fix them. “Hey, look how low I’ve sunk, don’t ask me to rise, I’ll lose you when I’m high.” The musical accents are simply the perfect backdrop for the lyrical and vocal style and content of the material.

Burn and Shiver, released just fifteen months later, is similar in content and style, though the musical backdrop has evolved a bit, adding more sophisticated accents and strings where they fit perfectly. The first cut, Favorite Cities, cements it. “So it’s gray, so are my favorite cities…” In “Seven Days” they show their lyrical skills. “And here to read the future, but forced to breathe out the past, and too many conversations to uncover what was purposefully lost.” In “A Thousand Years,” the singer reveals a sense of oneness with the universe as she sings about breathing in all the words ever spoken. “As i’m walking, i know i’m not breathing, i’m not breathing only air. It’s filled with words once spoken by people everywhere, And i can hear all the whispers that have lived a thousand years. It just took me being open for them to reach my eager ears.”

Author: listener | Category: Indie, Music Reviews | July 2007