This Is My Hand (CD)


My Brightest Diamond

CD
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$15.98
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Also available in: Vinyl LP, Vinyl LP

Amoeba Review

09/15/2014

Onetime Sufjan Stevens collaborator and now a formidable art-pop songstress in her own right, My Brightest Diamond (aka Shara Worden) pushes her songs further into accessibility with This Is My Hand. The sound of the record finds Worden singing over playful orchestrations, wielding her operatically trained voice slowly like a great and powerful weapon. “Pressure” begins with a drumline cadence and marching band horns, drawing soul out of her sometimes austere vocals and layering them over the song’s sexy strut “Before the Words’” huge, propulsive drum beat and jazzy bassline pair nicely with her hauntingly cooed vocals. Though she mines gold at playing the witchy vamp, it’s great, too, when she climbs out of her shell. “I am a lover and a killer” she sings with growing ferocity over a muscular groove on “Lover Killer,” finding inspiration in Prince and kinship in St. Vincent. “This is what love feels like!” she sings before unleashing a desperate wolf cry in “I Am Not the Bad Guy,” with a throbbing menace reminiscent of Radiohead, or a more friskier version of Third-era Portishead. Tracks with more open space, like “Looking at the Sun,” offer a chance for her divaesque vocals to come through beautifully, even as her words are foreboding (“wrestling with a double mine like two horses pulling both sides,” she sings creepily over Disney-level orchestration). “You never know minute to minute where I’m going” she sings tantalizingly on “Shape.” True. But that’s what makes listening to This Is My Hand so thrilling.



Track Listing



Disc 1 Titles
Artist
Length
1.
Pressure
My Brightest Diamond 03:57
2.
Before The Words
My Brightest Diamond 03:26
3.
This Is My Hand
My Brightest Diamond 03:45
4.
Lover Killer
My Brightest Diamond 03:59
5.
I Am Not The Bad Guy
My Brightest Diamond 05:11
6.
Looking At The Sun
My Brightest Diamond 03:43
7.
Shape
My Brightest Diamond 04:27
8.
So Easy
My Brightest Diamond 04:08
9.
Resonance
My Brightest Diamond 04:24
10.
Apparition
My Brightest Diamond 03:54

CD
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$15.98
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Also available in: LP , LP
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