Hannah Fury: The Thing That Feels http://www.mellowtraumatic.com

1. Not Like You
2. Love Today
3. Meathook
4. Of Longing (instr.)
5. Let It Show
6. I Can't Let You In
7. And Your Little Dog Too
8. All Is Not Well
9. It Was Her House That Killed Nessarose
10. Of Longing and Otherness (instr.)
11. Sweet Heart
12. Away
13. The Vampire Waltz

Back during the Woody Allen and Mia Farrow drama of the 90s, Farrow
reportedly sent Allen (and presumably, her estranged daughter) an
ornate Victorian-styled Valentine, complete with lace and frills. The
beautiful Valentine also included razor blades and knives in its
design. Hannah Fury's work has that feel-of delicacy masking torment.
Lines like "No meathook is as bad as a hook in the heart," or "Don't
speak/Don't support/ Just quietly abhor me" hide in darkly romantic
melodies, verbal razor blades. With its somnolent, hypnotic piano
ballads about witches and vampires sung with delicate vocals, The
Thing That Feels will undoubtedly remind you of Kate Bush and Tori
Amos. But Fury's work, on closer inspection, has more of a cabaret
feel. Where Bush is pyrotechnic fantasy and Amos is Technicolor
psychodrama, Fury is drawing-room genteel. The piano chords ripple
and circle back on each other; the phrasing is deliberate, her vocals
soft. Fury is theatrical, but not histrionic. She works in charcoal
tones and daguerreotype tints.

Five of _Thing's_ songs are based on Gregory Macguire's novel Wicked:
The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Fury takes on
the psyche and voice of the green-skinned sorceress. These are songs
of quiet madness and gentle obsession; like Macguire's novel, these
songs suggested that the witch's crimes were based on insanity and
loss of faith rather than evil. "I follow her [Dorothy] down the
Yellow Brick Road/ Chasing her now, for revenge, I suppose. She
causes destruction wherever she goes…"is one lyric. "And Your Little
Dog Too," sounds particularly unsettling, with Fury's lightly
processed voice creepily admonishing a child to surrender the Ruby
Slippers.

Her love songs are like Farrow's twisted valentines; unrequited love
and regret. Fury is an idealist in a cynic's clothing. "Away,"
appropriately moves away from the theme of romantic obsession; it's a
lament for the late Jeff Buckley that weaves imagery of angels and
muddy rivers into a song of transcendence. The closing song, "The
Vampire Waltz," uses the scenario of a woman becoming a vampire as a
metaphor for romantic ennui and disappointment.

_The Thing That Feels_ is a rich, complex album in spite of its
sparseness-one song is augmented by a bass, the other a cello. Beauty
and darkness reside together, often illuminated by the spark of
caustic wit.
--Craig