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The Machine in the Garden
Shadow Puppets

Middle Pillar Presents

Posted: Wednesday, March 29, 2006
By: Matthew Johnson
Features Editor

It’s apparent from the first glance at The Machine in the Garden’s new CD that this is more than your average ethereal album. The ghoulishly grinning marionette on the front cover is a presage of something darker than the airy-fairy atmospheres you might expect if you’re not familiar with the band. That’s not to say this album isn’t pretty, of course. It’s incredibly pretty, in fact; lead singer Summer Bowman has a lovely soprano, and she shows it off to good effect on the piano-laced “Illusions In Rain,” the gently floating “Winter Fell,” and the majestic “Suspend,” which just might be this year’s darkwave anthem. Still, there’s a darkness here that gives Shadow Puppets a certain weight that’s lacking in most offerings from this genre. Programmer Roger Fracé adds a muted tension to the pulsing beats of “The Inside World,” and the way Bowman’s voice rapidly jumps and down the scales is somehow discomfiting. On “Mother,” she whispers, wails, and whimpers over synthetic chimes and a bass effect that throbs back and forth across the stereo channels, while on “Spider’s Bride” she sings a duet with Fracé that descends into paranoid depths before emerging as a percussion-based tribal chant. “If Ever” begins softly enough with strummed acoustic guitars, but dissonant noise and distortion creeps in, threatening to take over the gentle melodies before ebbing away with the end of the chorus. Seemingly aware of just how far they can push their audience, Bowman and Fracé end the album with the deliberately serene “Goodbye,” a lushly bittersweet arrangement of achingly beautiful vocal layers and warm analog synthesizers. Delicate yet edgy, The Machine in the Garden manages to create heavenly atmospheres without slipping into sleepy self-indulgence or cloying sweetness. Perfect moody music for goths and shoegazers alike, Shadow Puppets should particularly appeal to fans of This Mortal Coil, Faith & Disease, and Black Tape For a Blue Girl.