Mary Timony: The Golden Dove : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Mary Timony is one of the more oddball acts on the Matador roster -- which is no small feat considering the New York indie also hosts precocious, er, talent like Stephen Malkmus, Cat Power and Belle and Sebastian. But even by those lofty standards, this second solo album by the moon-faced Helium singer is weird. There are songs about serpents who fly, cats with medical degrees and fairies who do all sorts of bad things. The effect is heightened by the music, produced in part by Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, which is a nausea-inducing mix of prog-rock and mediaeval folk. On "The Mirror" malnourished guitar chords give way to a spiraling chorus and gong-like rhythms, while "The Owl's Escape" glides by on a murky stream of ghostly sound effects and reform school piano loops. "14 Horses," meanwhile, sounds like an old castle hymn reshaped by Faust, and features the less than savory line, "The crystal ship of your mind/The wile horse of space and time." It's like the pop equivalent to the 692-page fantasy epic, only it makes less sense.

AIDIN VAZIRI
(May 21, 2002)