Theatre Is Evil [Import]

An awful lot of hype has gathered around this release in the last few months. If the yea-sayers are to be believed, it represents a mighty stride forward into the future of the music business: a million dollar crowdfunded behemoth built on mutual love and admiration between fan and artist; a true leveller of the playing field and an inevitable inspiration to those seeking alternative methods for making their sounds heard.

Regardless of your feelings regarding the album's process, one question has always remained, and it is a question that could only be answered truthfully within the last few days: Is the album actually any good?

The simplest answer would be 'YES', though any answer so brief would do an injustice to a record that has plainly had hours of attention lavished upon even its humblest moments.

In the broadest sense, 'Theatre Is Evil' is very much a product of the 80s. It is not, one should be aware, a mere revivalist exercise: though the music frequently ticks the boxes of goth, cock rock, new wave and new romantic, it still sounds - appropriately enough - new. The twinkling synths that garnish much of the album may have that retro vibe, but they are merely an aspect of the wider pantheon of musical glory.

The band should be exceptionally proud of their creation. Nary a second is left unfilled by thrilling sounds, yet the songs never feel cluttered or unwieldy - just exciting. Palmer herself is also on top form, perhaps in the finest voice of her career, with added menace to the growl and further yearning to the moan.

Of course, as a house with a beautiful facade is no use if the foundations are rotten, so an album covered in pretty music is nothing without good songwriting. Again, AFP & GTO have performed admirably, creating songs that are expertly wrought and fundamentally safisfying in every aspect. The ballads swoon with bitter longing and heart-rending melancholy, whilst the bouncier numbers pop and rock before bursting with superglue choruses, each and all scattered with glittering lyricism.

If you love your music to come with heaping scoops of passion, served with precision and dusted with panache, 'Theatre Is Evil' is the album that will make your year.

When Amanda Palmer turned to crowdsourcing to fund the manufacture and distribution of Theatre Is Evil, the album was already recorded, so here we have the oddity of a massive spotlight being turned onto what is, at heart, a very modest album. The chances are that Palmer will now 'cross over' to a much wider audience, but on the face of it nothing could be more unexpected, since this is not a particularly commercial album.

Those who heard her previous, big label solo effort, Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, will already expect an album of extremes, from the rampant, energetic pop of 'The Killing Type' to songs such as 'The Bed Song' and 'Berlin' which have a deeply theatrical feel to them. Palmer's lyrics are always edgy and bordering on the confessional, but she has a real gift with melody that means that songs often draw together her influences very cleverly to create something fresh.

Palmer's fans will probably want to lynch me for saying this, but the truth is that Who Killed Amanda Palmer? is actually a better album, where producer Ben Folds helped to rein in some of the self-indulgence and give her 'punk cabaret' roots a hint of high production gloss. Left to her own devices, Palmer has turned in something with a raw energy that can make for uneasy listening. The ballads are just so striking that it's sometimes wrenching to listen to the songs that invoke eighties pop.

That said, for those who can handle the gamut of extravagant emotions run by an immensely talented performer who seems from moment to moment to need either a throat lozenge, a hug or Ritalin, this is a great, vital album.

Given this album by my son for my sixtieth birthday and looked at the cover(s) and wondered why? Put on the first track and wondered why even more and was then simply blown away with the rest of the album. The power of Amanda's voice, the beauty of the tunes. I was so struck I bought tickets to her Bistol(UK)gig as soon as the CD had finished. Hard to define but elements brought to mind - the energy of the Scissor Sisters, the intricate tunes of Tori Amos and the production that in places reminded me of the Beatles - Sgt Pepper's. This album is simply a work of art. Go listen on something like Sp-tify and you will probably end up buying it. Great present, thanks Gavin.