Juliette Commagère Issue #38

Queens Die Proudly (Aeronaut)

By Leah Urbom
Published: December 1st, 2008 | 12:00am

Equipped with an unusual gift for ambient power balladry, Juliette Commagère employs her all-encompassing voice to sing about melancholic isolation on her first solo album, Queens Die Proudly. Not the most uplifting subject in the world, however Commagère magnificently portrays these feelings through her own unique style — which lands somewhere between Inara George’s haunting electronics and the goth-pop tendencies of Evanescence.

The instrumentals, paired with the lyricism, are what keep Commagère from falling in with the pile of overly dramatic, ethereal pop singers — as is evident on the title track when she sings, “In the morning / With famine on my lips.” On standout “Everything I Love” she laments over tribal-like drum beats, “She hates him so much / She had to let him go,” and on “Overcome,” sings of a long-distance tie, “Our distance grows and widens ... I feel you most when we’re divided.”

The ultra-chilled nature is perfect for anyone who enjoys shutting themselves in for an evening to ponder their own dark, dark spells over a glass or three of wine. Commagère entrenches the room in her essence, coating the ceiling, walls, and floor; words swirl and loop, encompassing the listener in a voice tunnel of sorts, while quick-witted percussion plays into other lazily swelling instrumentals — howling, pulsing, plummeting into oblivion.

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