Catherine A.D.

Waking the dead

“Kooky and spooky”, said one reviewer of this singer – and the Addams Family similarities don’t stop there. Catherine A.D. sings like a gothic mermaid version of the grim reaper, luring those who hear into her warm blanket of decay and beauty – before smashing them against the rocks (as it were).

Her folk-noir sound is as effortlessly sultry as it is dark and brooding, and sees her wading into waters that are inhabited by the likes of Tori Amos, Regina Spector, and Joanna Newsom. Courtney Love went as far as referring to her as having a “gorgeous sick beautiful voice”. Her voice, in truth, is a paradox; it evokes both a haunting, ethereal sense of foreboding, tinged with glimmers of wrought desire and hope.

The whirling backing music to ‘Carry Your Heart’ sounds like the ice cream van at the end of the world – spinning out its melancholy jingle as the end draws ever nearer. ‘Grow Out’ is reminiscent of Muse’s Matt Bellamy at his intro-warbling best as it spins a death-scented novella of honey-laced lyrics over a piano that sounds as if it is tumbling off the edge of reality. ‘Unravel’ showcase’s Catherine at her evocative best; as her voice weaves a delicate web, it ensnares the listener in its carefully constructed threads.

She writes on her blog that she wants to “send satellites out to every 13-year-old [girl] who might be dying a slow death in Suburbia, nowheresville,” and be “scratched into the door of some boy’s locker as a reminder of why he has to move to London in the next two years”.

The siren is calling and those rocks are coming up fast, so it’s time to don your emotional lifejacket and enjoy a swim in a voice that’s described as like “a lake of black honey”.

Catherine A.D. is currently working on tracks for her debut album.

http://www.catherinead.com/

http://www.myspace.com/catherineannedavies