Release Date: February 11, 2014
Hair-raising and eerie, True Love Kills the Fairy Tale is just in time for Valentine’s Day.
The Casket Girls, Phaedra and Elsa Greene alongside guitarist and drone-master Ryan Graveface, create a haunting sophomore album with Graveface Records. For the Savannah trio, this endeavor seemed to come out of a fever dream.
On Graveface Records’ website, Graveface regaled, “I dropped off a shit ton of songs to the girls to work on one night. I went back to check on their progress, because they weren’t answering their phones. I don’t know if they dropped acid or what, but I walked in and Elsa was sobbing and reciting poetry while Phaedra was just staring straight ahead writing it all down, like, catatonic.”
Their unorthodox methods don’t come as a shock upon diving into True Love.
Phaedra and Elsa lay down track after hazy track, all featuring diving, lilting melodies and the girls’ distinctive floating, breathy vocals.
This time around they tackle love lost, chemically-induced states, and filling the cracks between reality and fiction. Graveface brings an onslaught of gritty psych-rock to the table in intricate layers, a Graveface LP calling card. The album overall has a much more aggressive and grinding sound than its predecessor, Sleepwalking.
Opening track “Same Side” plays with fantasy and reality, holds down a metronome-like drum kick, boasts a sick drop into the thick of the song, and features the Greene sisters’ mesmerizing vocals calling, “We’re on the same side.”
In sharp contrast, “Day to Day” is a wall of sound that begs, “How did we get so low? How did we get so high?” Taking a melodic turn, “Chemical Dizzy” stays true to its title and integrates feelings of love and philosophical disorientation, beginning, “What came first, the count or the number?” and repeating, “You and I are like water and fire/Opposites only exist with each other,” and, “There’s nothing more dangerous than the wounded heart.”
Discussing the origins of True Love Kills the Fairy Tale further, Graveface recalls the Greenes giving him a CD. The pair didn’t remember what was on it or if it was any good. What he found when he listened was something remarkably cohesive given the addled condition the sisters were in. When the trio went into the studio to record, Phaedra and Elsa had to relearn the songs. They couldn’t remember a thing, as of someone else had written the record. “Very bizarre,” Graveface mused.
Bizarre is one word for much of True Love. Having grown up in a funeral home, the Greene sisters and their sound have a macabre edge.
This essence, mingled with their distinctive vocals, makes them stand-outs, but their shine is dimmed by tracks that are just okay, like “Ashes and Embers” and “Stone and Rock.”
Mediocre mixes aside, title track “True Love Kills the Fairy Tale” resurrects this electronic, often shoegaze, trio. The album’s static-filled closer, “The Chase,” chants “forgiveness” alongside a high-pitched synth melody, bringing closure to an album that begs big questions and was likely recorded out of an other-worldly state.
The Casket Girls are on an upswing with this record, albeit not a very romantic one. True Love Kills the Fairy Tale is the soundtrack for a Valentine’s Day spent alone.
The Casket Girls- True Love Kills the Fairy Tale tracklist:
- “Same Side”
- “Day to Day”
- “Chemical Dizzy”
- “Ashes and Embers”
- “True Love Kills the Fairy Tale”
- “Secular Love”
- “Holding You Back”
- “Stone and Rock”
- “Perfect Little Soul”
- “The Chase”
