My Brightest Diamond
(Asthmatic Kitty)
Shara Worden’s formidable skills as a guitarist and cheerleader take a backseat to her operatic vocal technique and string-arranging talents when she records as My Brightest Diamond. Freed from Sufjan Stevens’ Illinoisemakers band and pep rally squad, Worden debuted in 2006 with the dramatic Bring Me The Workhorse.
Some of the recordings on A Thousand Shark’s Teeth predate that album, although you wouldn’t know it from listening: the mood is steady (a dark swoon) and the arrangements consistent (variations of dark swoops, most often thick with orchestral strings). These are aggressively arty songs in the tradition of Kate Bush, Tori Amos and Bjork (the latter especially on the marimba-based “Apples” and the quiet pizzicato moments of “To Pluto’s Moon”). But although comparatively noisy “Inside A Boy” and the ruminative “The Diamond” pulse with beautiful tension, Worden has little interest in the conventional pop structures that occasionally balance those artists’ more outré ambitions, and A Thousand Shark’s Teeth veers often toward pretension, and sometimes ends up there.
Standout Tracks: “Apples,” “Inside A Boy” STEVE KLINGE
