Elvis Perkins
Ash Wednesday

Poetry, introspection, and tragic melancholy are the ingredients of Elvis Perkins' debut album, bare and balanced ballads reveal apocalyptic images that move, conveying the sense of the end. Dark and deep songs inspired by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Leonard Cohen, scented with bourbon and ash give light to the night and soul to the tragedy, meaning to pain and justice to memory, relief.

"Ash Wednesday" is a cold and lonely album, powerful in its delicacy, "no one will survive on Ash Wednesday, no soldier, no lover, no father, no mother, not a single child" (Ash Wednesday), music can relieve suffering by returning what life can take away.

Elvis Perkins' first album makes evident the sense of loss, the delicate and fragile sounds describe a tough and authentic life experience, as current as misery. Elvis is the son of Anthony Perkins, who died of AIDS in 1992, and Berry Berenson, a photographer famous for her work with "Life" and "Vogue", who died on September 11, 2001, aboard the first plane that crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, a tragic fate like the fog that surrounds the mysteries of that tragic day.

In "While You Were Sleeping" the son of "Psycho" condenses horror and dream into a unique image reminiscent of Elliott Smith, a ballad with a funeral pace, the horror of a day, "All the Night Without Love" is the most beautiful song of the album, gypsy and full of love, soaked in red wine and smoke, very European, "May Day" is a flash of light, a choral tribute to spring, "Moon Woman II" is the woman of the night, how can one do without her in all this grayness, "It's Only Me" is the rhythm of the heart, a love song, damp as November, like tears, sweet as Seattle at dawn, "Emile's Vietnam in the Sky" is the evening song light as the violins accompanying it, towards the sun.

Elvis Perkins is the classic artist who can afford a simple and unadorned album, acoustic and elegant songs that might remind one of Jeff Buckley, the Neutral Milk Hotel, and Destroyer, which in their fragility can disorient and impress.

The lyrics of "Ash Wednesday" often send images of sleep and flight, circumstances wavering between real life and surreality, where the dream might lead us to a better place, "While you were sleeping the sky fell, the earth shook, the future burned, while you were sleeping the money died, the cars were harmless, gravity brought my love around, the time changed, everything was rearranged, so I waited for dawn and silence" (While You Were Sleeping).

Maybe the world is a bit sad, but luckily no one can ever deny us the realization of a happy ending, which might depend solely on our will, a world where all the dead, finally, will be equal, like all dictators.