Rage. fury. death. decay. damnation. Sin. Pestilence. The talented Diamanda Galas has a vision of the world that makes the horror-stricken likes of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft seem like pink-cheeked Pollyannas. On past work, like Plague Mass and Masque of the Red Death, the eccentric diva has sometimes resorted to bombast and high melodrama in an attempt somehow to overwhelm the terrors and atrocities she confronts headon in her music.

On The Singer, though still facing down the darkest fears of modern life, she summons up a sound that is stripped down and a fury that is razor sharp. Alone on the album, accompanying herself with what can be described only as two-fisted piano playing, Galas works her way through a collection of old blues, gospel and pop songs, from "I Put a Spell on You" to "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" and "Gloomy Sunday" (sometimes known as "The Hungarian Suicide Song," both because the melancholy nature of the tune supposedly caused distraught lovers to hurl themselves out of windows and because the composer, R. Seress, after a late-night performance at a Budapest nightspot, went upstairs and hanged himself).

Each song on The Singer is transformed into a howl, a shriek, a rant against life, death, nature, the history of music and the will of God. To close, she simply eats the piano. (RS 633)

BRIAN CULLMAN