NYC goth prankster, cartoonist, film-maker and crooner Voltaire returns with a third album of tongue-in-cheek dark delicacies. Like his Enlightenment namesake, Voltaire delights in skewering society's pretensions, and isn't afraid to take on the pomposity of the lace, bat and kohl-eyed set. In fact, some of the funniest songs on a Voltaire album reflect his jaundiced yet affectionate eye toward the "Vampire Club" scene, as in the track of the same name on this disc, where the worst offense one can commit is to utter the real name of a fanged role-player.
"Irresponsible" takes cheeky aim at political correctness in its satirical gloss on a guy who delights in "Dolphin in the tuna net" because he's "on the tuna's side." "Brains" toasts the delights of, you guessed it, eating grey matter: "I don't fry em, the heat will only shrink em/I just grab my self a straw and I drink em!"
Let's put it this way, if you're easily offended and/or unable to appreciate the human comedy, pass this one over. On the other hand, then you'd be missing such comic gems as "My Future Ex-Girlfriend," where Voltaire looks forward to dissing a Keanu Reeves-lovin' coke whore model he has yet to date, or the Edgar Alan Poe tribute "Graveyard Picnic."
With instrumentation that includes bass, cello, violin, trombone and acoustic guitar, Voltaire's music resembles a swing band composed of Romanian gypsies who've listened to much too much Brecht and Weill when they're not nodding their heads and moving their lips silently to the sepulchral Bauhaus classic "Bela Lugosi is Dead." First rate.
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