Bonfire Diaries

It might be stretching it to call the music of Metal Mother (a.k.a. singer/songwriter Tara Tati) metallic or motherly in any conventional sense. All labels aside, the songs on her debut album are beguiling and provocative, woven around a blend of tribal percussion and electronic beats and topped off with quivering guitars and goth string accents. Tati immerses her vocals in echo, giving them a spooky quality akin to Siouxsie Sioux or Kate Bush at their most oracular. Bonfire Diaries unfolds as a series of impressionistic pieces rather than linear chapters. The hypnotic rhythms and distorted instrumental washes of “In The Bones,” “Lost Story” and “Ashes” cast particularly potent spells. Tati flirts with the blues on the eerie “Vices” and adds some classical piano filigree to the seductive “Willow.” The spacey Western feel of “Gold Lasso” and the buoyant, brass-accented “Billy Cruz” brings some needed brightness to this brooding set. In her Metal Mother guise, Tati seems one-half performance artist, one-half pagan priestess. Fusing these roles together, she makes Bonfire Diaries into a compelling experience.