Booth, Dede: This Strange Confinement

Dede Booth started out in the goth rock band Sententia where I first learned of the artist after reviewing the band’s The Center In The Sand album. That was quite a few years ago and I have since lost track of the artist. This brings us to 2019 and Booth’s solo effort titled This Strange Confinement.

Booth was inspired to write the album after visiting the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA. As you might imagine the music is far from upbeat given the subject matter partly looking at external and internal confinement as a form of the human condition. On the album Dede plays and sings everything herself, indeed, this is a one woman band. For the most part the tempos are quite slow, the music and vocals taking a low key approach. Moody and mellow soundscapes, often filled with melancholic tones and slowly building instrumentation. There are no big classic build ups, like I said this is quite subdued and you need to pay attention to the subtle details. Dede’s vocals are good having a monotone style that suits the post rock landscape that defines some of these songs.

Moody keys and acoustic guitar strums highlight the quite poignant opening track “Prologue: This Strange Confinement�. The mellow “Chapter 1: Born To Burn� follows with its soft vocals set back in the mix and some pretty creative bursts of guitar. The slightly unsettling “Chapter 2: The Other� is on the darker side with whispered vocals and moody keyboard layers. That’s really how the album plays out, very dark, melancholic and moody.

A couple of points. First off, I think the album would have benefitted from real drums. Secondly, there is not much difference sonically between tracks so that may be an issue for some. I do not necessarily consider this a negative as it does give the album a cohesiveness around a definite concept. I will let you decide.

So, while This Strange Confinement is a very good album I will need to be in a certain mood to put this one on. Fans of post rock and alternative music in general might want to check this out.

Track Listing:
1. Prologue: This Strange Confinement
2. Chapter 1: Born To Burn
3. Chapter 2: The Other
4. Chapter 3: Gone But Not Forgotten
5. Chapter 4: In Every Cell
6. Chapter 5: Corridors
7. Chapter 6: Prisoner Of Thought
8. Chapter 7: Take It Back
9. Chapter 8: Freedom
10. Chapter 9: In Search Of
11. Chapter 10: A Self Removed
12. Chapter 11: This Is The End
13. Epilogue: A Common Liberation

Added: December 10th 2019
Reviewer: Jon Neudorf
Score:
Related Link: Artist @ Bandcamp
Hits: 735
Language: english

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