{"id":6769,"date":"2014-02-05T18:51:34","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T23:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=6769"},"modified":"2023-11-19T18:19:15","modified_gmt":"2023-11-19T23:19:15","slug":"album-review-true-love-kills-the-fairy-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/album-review-true-love-kills-the-fairy-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"ALBUM REVIEW: True Love Kills the Fairy Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"GRAVE107CasketGirlsCover_1400_zpse35d90cd\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels as though we found each other, when we reflect back on the myriad of minutia decisions that were made to cross paths at that exact point in time,\u201d says Phaedra Greene <\/a>of the fateful day when she and sister Elsa met producer\/songwriter Ryan Graveface. The story goes that Ryan stumbled upon the sisters singing and playing autoharp under a tree in a park in Savannah, GA, and the trio have been collaborating as The Casket Girls <\/a>for the two or so years since. Phaedra continues, \u201cit begs the question, was it the first time we met?\u201d<\/p>\n

This mystic sensibility is what the group have become known for, to an extent, and it colors the sound of their upcoming sophomore album, True Love Kills the Fairy Tale, <\/i>out Feb. 11th via Graveface Records. The ten-track record comes with its own bizarre backstory: allegedly, all of the lyrics were written in one night while the sisters were in some sort of semi-conscious dream state (\u201cElsa was sobbing and reciting poetry while Phaedra was just staring straight ahead and writing it all down, like catatonic,\u201d according to Ryan) and they have no recollection of it at all. But despite these questionable origins, the final product is a rather focused and lush sounding album.<\/p>\n

True Love Kills The Fairy Tale<\/i> begins with a winking electronic beat and the sisters\u2019 haunting, harmonious \u201coooh\u201ds. As the album progresses, the production becomes ever more dense. \u201cDay to Day,\u201d for example, has a distinct shoegaze-y wall of sound quality to it and a slow tempo that lulls you into a haze. The title track features a lot of fuzz and some interesting instrumental work\u2014acoustic guitar? banjo?\u2014near its end, which is refreshing to hear midway through the electronically inclined album. \u201cHolding You Back,\u201d on the other hand, has a quintessentially pop sound to it, with \u201880s influences to boot. The lyrics, meanwhile, explore the tension and balance found in dichotomies (as in \u201cChemical Dizzy,\u201d in which the girls sing \u201cOpposites only exist with each other\u201d) as well as more metaphysical themes (like the concept of \u201cunrequited reality\u201d from the first track, \u201cSame Side\u201d).<\/p>\n

Though the album is pretty purely pop, it remains instrumentally grounded in Graveface\u2019s mechanical blips. A straight-shot listen might make some of the tracks come off as repetitive, but The Casket Girls have a pretty specific sound which they do very well. Droning and entrancing, True Love Kills the Fairy Tale<\/i> leaves you blissed out and bobbing your head along to the catchy riffs.<\/p>\n