Haunted [Enhanced]

With this album Poe has taken a big step forward from her debut album 'Hello', both lyrically and
in production values she has moved to a new level. This is a record like no other I've heard from
any independent female singer/songwriter in the alternative/pop/rock arena. The songs range
from loud, brash, Garbage style rockers featuring programmed drums and crashing guitars,
through atmospheric trip-hop/electronic pop to quiet, introspective ballads. You can hear
influences as diverse as Tori Amos, Aimee Mann and Kid A era Radiohead in these songs, but
served to you in a new, stylish and very original way.

This IS a concept album of sorts. It was written and recorded in parallel with her brother, Mark Z.
Danielewski, writing his extraordinary novel House of Leaves and references many of the themes
considered within, and imagery generated by the novel, but does so without creating any sort of
interdependency. Both novel and album stand up well on their own - there is no need to read the
book to appreciate the album - but if you get time to check out House of Leaves you will discover
an extra layer of meaning contained within Haunted, (as well as having read a very, very unusual
book indeed.)

The songs themselves take you on a deeply personal journey of self examination in which Poe
confronts different aspects of her own personality and of her relationship with her recently deceased
father - the acclaimed lecturer and documentary film maker Tad Danielewski. That may sound a little
ominous, but believe me this is not a depressing album. In fact the overall feeling is that you are
listening to snippets taken from the diary of a very confident, complex and intelligent woman, turned
into songs.

Interspersed throughout this CD are brief samples taken from answerphone messages Poe left her
mother, recordings of Poe as a child and old recordings of her father. These, rather than interrupt the
flow of the album, help to link the songs and add an extra layer of texture and atmosphere to the album.
Poe has used these and other samples to create a sort of aural collage which adds yet another
dimension to her music. Her vocals are great. She has a strong clear voice and has used it's full range
of emotion and feeling during the recording of these songs. Powerful, sensual and challenging on
tracks like 'Walk The Walk', 'Control' and 'Not A Virgin', but softer and more thoughtful on '5.5 Minute
Hallway', 'Spanish Doll', 'Amazed' and 'If You Were Here'

Overall this is a complex and intelligent album from Poe. It will not be to everyone's taste, but if you are
looking for something totally original and unique then you may just have found it. For me it was a real
pleasure to come across an artist that has managed to use the modern recording process to create
a piece of musical theatre that is this sophisticated, yet still has a feeling of honesty. Stands head and
shoulders above most of what's on offer today.

One of the reasons that I like this album is that the sound is very diverse so you get a mixture of the rock tunes (Control) with the chilled out vibe of Hey Pretty to the singalong friendly Lemon Meringue.

Poe has an incredible voice but it changes depending on the song that she is singing, it is very unique and draws you in. Another thing about her singing, she is so expressive, she is really getting into telling the story if you know what I mean. So many artists these days just sing teh song and believe that that is enough whilst others wil 'perform it' with all teh emotion that it is supposed to have - even if that makes for uncomfortable listening (remember Tori Amos in the early days?).

The songs are linked by soundbites where she has sampled her voice as a child, her brother's voice and her father's voice from a batch of old family tapes that she has found. This freaks me out. The album is like a dialogue that she has with her father and it is dedicated to him. Her father is deceased so when you hear her talking to him and he is 'answering' it is, for me, REALLY DAMN EERIE and lends a whole new aspect to the album. Personally, I listen to the songs in the evening and skip the soundbites because they are really too much in the evening.

The album is also linked to her brother's book The House of Leaves (also available from Amazon in 24hrs whereas some of the bookshops were quoting a 4 - 6 week order time as it had to be exported from the US). I've just recently finished reading it - if you wanted to, you could link all the songs on the album to chapters, events and characters in the book and POE even lists the references on the inside sleeve of the cd cover. I would suggest that you listen to the CD on it's own and make it yours rather than try to link it to the book.

Oh, and the guy that reads the excerpt from the House of Leaves in the Hey Pretty remix is her brother, Mark.

If you can't buy this album, try to borrow it from someone or get them to make you a copy. You will not be disappointed!!