So you’ve stabbed your cheating lover through the heart and she’s bled out on the floor. You’ve poured yourself a stiff drink and now have a decision to make; Just what music is suitable for the occasion? Well I have the solution: Knives and Gasoline, a native band based in Los Angeles, has the perfect answer with their album, “Love Songs For Crime Scenes.”
I was struggling with just how to describe this album until I read a review on Amazon and saw it described as “. . . an avant-garde mix of Punk, Jazz and Hip-Hop with a smattering of Euro-Trash Goth tossed in for good measure.”
The band consists of Noel “Deeskee” DeMello (keyboards, guitar, bass, percussion, drum programming, turntables) and hot chick Stacey Dee (vocals, guitar, bass, harmonica, percussion) and they’ve collaborated before but this is regarded as a very personal album. In an interview, Stacey said they’d decided to “write music organically and see what came out”. What came out is an emotive rendition that moves from sombre to foot tapping, covering moods from pleasure to pain and running the gamut of the human experience.
Song titles include “Off the Air”, “Feel”, “Bang Bang,” “The Night Is Young”, “Breadcrumbs”, “Credit to Heartache” and “Stage Coach Road”. All in all the 14 tracks weave in and out of several different genres but such is the vocal and instrumental magic delivered by Deeskee and Stacy that the album is virtually seamless.
I found Stacey’s vocal somewhat reminiscent of Janis Ian at times, somewhat plaintive and well, almost thin, but then at other times powerful and strong. All in all it is an album worth becoming closely acquainted with if you like music that is more alternative than mainstream. The more I listen to it, the more it grows on me.
“Love Songs For Crime Scenes” is available in various mediums including MP3 and CD from Amazon.com with the CD version listed at a very reasonable $14.74. It comes with a warning that it contains “explicit lyrics” but I doubt that would put off any Bikernet readers.
Email the record producer at info@grimmimage.com
Grimm Image Records
4401 W Slauson Ave
Box 113
Los Angeles, CA 90043
