Casanets CD Review

Castanets' album captures folk's darkest side
http://www.pittnews.com/arts_entertainment/1.891537-1.891537

Raymond Raposa, the center of folk band Castanets, never got the memo that cassette tapes haven't been sold en masse for years. Maybe it's because he recorded his album alone in a Nevada motel.

With an anthemic beginning boasting huge acoustic skills, Castanet’s "City of Refuge" redefines folk music.

The latest album from the band, which centers on singer-songwriter Raymond Raposa, alternates from guitar-strumming melodies to a spacey “alien invasion” montage. This makes sense, considering that Castanets has been a part of a freak-folk movement remaking folk music.

City of Refuge alternates between being sweet and dark. The record is full of comforting and relaxing guitar-strumming, as well as dark and forbidding tunes and static blaring from speakers in a freakish manner that almost screams, “The invaders are here!”

And really, it’s the theme of the record: good versus evil, and the never-ending struggle this brings.

The album was the product of three weeks that Raposa spent isolated and alone in a Nevada desert hotel. This desolation comes through in the music, too, with echoing and aching tones that paint a sparse, almost desperate musical canvas.

Raposa’s creation is like a soundtrack without a movie. Each song flows straight into the next. The majority of songs do not have lyrics, and those that do are all the more powerful.

“Fly Away,” for example, proclaims: “I’ll fly away, fly away / In the morning / When I die Hallelujah / by and by! I’ll fly away, fly away.”

“Fly Away” is an incredibly short good-bye song. It’s as if Raposa hit his limit and decided, “I’m done, and it’s time to take off on this gorgeous morning to find somewhere even more glorious.” It goes well with an earlier song titled “Refuge 1,” where Raposa’s intent is to run away to a city of refuge.

Then it’s time to enter an even darker zone, when songs like “Shadow Valley” strike the stereo and begin to preach about a darker side of mankind.

“I swear your breath last night / Sounded just like thunder / I swear your breath last night sounded just like gunshots,” sings Raposa.

It’s almost innocent, except for the ominous chord matching the lyric. Besides, the implication is that the person lying beside Raposa is a murderer with a smoking gun nearby. Even the sweetest people in nearby company are capable of good and bad, it seems.

The album concludes with a track named “After The Fall,” a story focusing on infamous sinners named Adam and Eve, with lyrics like “If I’d known where we were going / I might not have gone at all / But there was no way of knowing / After the fall.”

Haven’t we all been there? We wish we’d done better, but it’s too late to turn back the clock — it’s time to deal with what we’ve done.

So, folk haters, it might be worthwhile to give Castanets a shot. Just sit back, listen to the polarized music styles, and think about yourself if you dare.