CocoRosie

Grey Oceans (Sub Pop)

By Vicky Lim
Published: May 13th, 2010 | 7:00am

Sierra and Bianca Casady write songs with little inhibition, from a realm where you meet unexpected juxtapositions like hopscotch with tear drops, hot pink flashes in the sky, and zoo noises that echo in the static. As CocoRosie, the sisters tell surrealistic, spooky stories, and on their fourth album, Grey Oceans, these songs come from similar dreams. Sometimes the results can be brilliant, but this time, they are rather underwhelming.

“Smokey Taboo” highlights Bianca’s free association rap, which is rich with exquisite corpse imagery and overlaps that leads us into Sierra’s operatic meditation, reminiscent of a style the sisters are known for in favorites like “Werewolf.” Another bright point is the playful “Hopscotch,” a haphazard song that conjures up both positive and negative moods. The sisters know how to capture us in a spectrum, create blurs, and slide between tones of maturity that have been described as faux-naïve.

Towards the middle of the album, however, songs move in slow motion with recognizable sound bites from previous albums, like in “Trinity’s Crying,” and it’s hard to recall what you are listening to. “Undertaker” features bland, sparse piano. More thin twinkles open “Lemonade,” although the song does spin upwards with horns and synths. The overall drawn-out effect of Grey Oceans probably comes from the album’s intention to create the tone of a full moon and haunted house with crows and burn faces, but it achieves a monotone instead of eeriness.

The pleasure of listening to CocoRosie comes from their loose spirits, blinking visions, how they would step outside to record the sound of rain drops on tin, noting the world down in spontaneous prose, allowing gestures to fleet. So for those who are already fans, this album is worth a listen for a taste of material that while familiar is new.

__

CocoRosie official Web site

CocoRosie MySpace page

Sub Pop Records