The cool thing about multifaceted Manhattan songstress Randi Russo is that she never raises her voice on the eerily eclectic Shout Like A Lady. Akin to wordsmiths Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, and Ani DiFranco, Russo emerges as a seer, sage, and soothsayer - sometimes all in the span of one song. Hitting the depths of her already low vocal range, Russo's doom and gloom reading "Battle On The Periphery" is made even more foreboding by ominous harmonies rendered in a swish of Hammond organ motifs, car radio effects, and dissonant guitar licks (props to multi-instrumentalist Lenny Molotov). "That Corpse," a quirky garage rock shuffle, boasts a chorus to kill for: "lie on / lie on/ that corpse /woo-hoooo / don't mean a single thing that he's turned green / he's filled with so much envy / it's coming out of his spleen." Russo chooses to wax romantic in the final cut "Cobwebs," using her sticky sweet falsetto to sooth her subject to sleep. Who wouldn't want this lady to lie across their big brass bed? Highly recommended for alt rockers tired of (yawn) Regina Spektor.
Tom Semioli
Release date: October 10, 2006
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