The Cesarians ‘Pure White Speed’ (NYAT/Genepool)
The Cesarians’ big great orchestra swings in right from the start of the album mixing in a heavy metal old school style crooning, powerful, furiously dragging behind anyone who has an excessive amount of energy and fire to spare.
And then the openings of the tunes are movie tracks: from the 50s, somehow reminiscent of the great Hitchcock; carries an air of suspense, while some melodies are carried on tiptoe, others are theatrically grandiose: A rock star is murdered, we flee the crime scene with defiance in The Cesarians shoes; their instruments are the tools of a genre noir movie, then it’s the drums again, accompanying the battle, a gang fight from the old days, and the clock is ticking… Charlie Finke says, “Everything dies”: With this melodic melancholic song, a soft raw voice, he is the hero who lays his head on our shoulder, like the angel bringing upon the news of our demises.
He is wicked in ‘She Said’. He is enchanteresque; alluring in ‘This Way’, he is both a character from Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and Pumpkin Jack, wandering in the heights of his town sunlit by a triumphant moon, despairing at the idea that he needs booze and a what?
It’s maybe the tone, the violin, the atmosphere, the voice. Is this a cello? Some kind of pounding bass?
“Which way?” The tunes compel our emotions to stay on guard, because…The forsaken opera singer emerges from the dark with an innocent gaze and tries to pull our arm, dragging us out there in the world of the shadows…An eccentric fierce and romantic figure, Charlie Finke is wearing black, disguised under many masks, in Manilla perhaps.
This in an eclectic album where each part of each tune seems like the pieces of one big puzzle: There is grand rock, there is the charismatic orchestra, the violins, the intensity of the voice, and it blends.
He is a woman too, Charlie; he is the man with wide open legs, and a short skirt, with the eyeliner running down his cheeks, after an exhausting day, he is decadent and beautifully neat, with these heels, he is the head of the mafia with the gaze of a falcon, it must be the use of these instrument and the allure of Charlie Finke himself, full of character and stamina, that affects our moods, today.
Words: Ayfer Simms
Monolith Cocktail Blog 