Rachel Taylor Brown - Susan Storm's Ugly Sister And Other Saints And Superheroes Review
Posted by Paul Hollingsworth on 07.09.2009
Until now, Galactus and Ambush Bug have never had songs written about them. Rachel Taylor Brown's latest release fills this gaping pop-culture chasm, but are comic book characters good inspiration for a pop album?
What would you do if you were Susan Storm's (aka The Invisible Woman from The Fantastic Four) slightly homely looking sister? What if you were Batman's bastard son? These are the types of questions which occupy the thoughts of Portland singer/songwriter Rachel Taylor Brown, but instead of writing her own comics, she explores these questions in song. If you're thinking that's sounds like playing a round of golf in order to better understand the symbolism of a Bergman film, you'd be on the right track. Once you accept the absurd at face value, however, you're more likely to concede it has its own charm and maybe even a bit of artistic merit.
The album opens with "Susan Storm's Ugly Sister", a Tori Amos inspired (at least musically) track which deals with the Invisible Woman's unattractive and possibly homicidal sister. Through Brown's performance and lyrics, however, the song avoids camp all together and moves in a different direction. It's not a parody song, at least not in the traditional sense, and its a testament to Brown's talent that you begin to feel some empthy for the unnamed sister, even if she has sinister plans for you and everyone else at Starbucks.
"Ambush Bug/Reduviidae", on the other hand, fully embraces the silliness of its title, which was no doubt on purpose. (Ambush Bug is an obscure DC Comics character, a practical joker at best, or a delusional psychotic at worse, depending on which story you believe.) The song again creates a character to talk about the fictional character mentioned in the title, this time it's Ambush Bug's eternally embarrassed brother. The brother is a blood thirsty warrior, and the music, full of military bombast and pomp, sets the mood. Although sibling rivalry (and embarrassment) have been dealt before in song, I'm positive Ambush Bug has never been the muse until now.
After a brief song featuring Galactus, (no. not that silly cloud from the last Fantastic Four movie, but the purple-helmeted badass) and his attempts to fill his empty heart, comes "Bruce Wayne's Bastard Son", which is a highlight of the album. The song has nothing to do with the recent "Batman & Son" stories in the comics, but instead plays an interesting game of "What If?": As in, what if Bruce Wayne's dalliance with a hooker resulted in a son, and that son snuck into the Bat Cave and watched Batman and Robin cavort and fight crime all the time? Brown does a good job of making the fictional bastard seem alive, which is tough to do within the constraints of a pop song.
The second half of the album features four songs about Roman Catholic Saints, and the more weighty (on the surface, anyway) subject matter is reflected in the more serious-sounding music. I suppose saints don't lend themselves well to the sort of ironic self reflection present in the first four tracks, although there are occasional hints that Brown is still having fun. ("Zoe Of Rome", in particular, about an early Christian martyr who was hung on a cross by her hair on the fifth of July, makes martyrdom and death seem almost joyous.)
The 411: If you're in the mood for something completely different ( and I mean that very much in the Monty Python sense) then Brown is a good choice. Musically, there's nothing ground breaking, but albums like this, which straddle the line between keen observation and absurdity, are few and far between. Brown should be applauded for trying something new in pop music, when so much of it is just a copy of a copy (of a copy.) It's not for everyone, but if you ever spent an afternoon arguing over who would win in a fight between Shazam and Superman, then Brown has made an album just for you.
