Freddy Ruppert
Dove Hounds (American Tragedies)

Freddy Ruppert, charismatic and enigmatic frontman of Former Ghosts and practically best friend of Jamie Stewart from Xiu Xiu, has decided to encase his obsessions in a chest called "American Tragedies," an album so intimate, sepulchral, and poignant that it pushed him to abandon even his previous solo moniker (This Song Is A Mess But So Am I), baring himself through the rawness of real identity.

An album that is a crescendo of whispered prayers in the dark, shouted against the wind, true gaping wounds in a bottomless heart, sucked into the horrific chasms of blood not yet coagulated, staining white shirts and alabaster hands. It's a universe that rises on continuous vertigo, on long walks on bare backs and tours in desecrated cathedrals.

There is something in this album, something pure and filthy at the same time, that completely nails you down. Whether it's a wonderful ballad like "For The Sake", which caresses the heart and brings bitter tears to shed on the lips of the first poor soul that crosses your path, or a barrage of frantic sounds, like that somewhat undefined scream of "The King", an anthem shouted in the darkness of the night, with fierce monsters looming in the shadows and under the bed of our childhood, it's impossible to escape: there is something magical among these oblique melodies, something oppressive and sexual.

Impossible to resist, among the subdued and instrumental parentheses of "Closing Distance 1"/"Closing Distance 2"/"Closing Distance 3"/"Closing Distance 4", to a perfect intelligent pop song like "Please, Please Wait For Me", a bit Smiths, a bit Joy Division, a bit Milky Way, or to the sepulchral glimpses of "Our Separate Churches", a black mass, almost spoken poetry on the violence of unclear wind instruments and noises, where the sacrifice always falls to the soul, mercilessly crushed by the teeth of this kid so beautiful, you would never expect such an assault on the senses.

And to close the circle, yet another American tragedy: "The Last Sip", a nursery rhyme for pure of heart, striking midnight. The spell ends, back to reality. 

But luckily the glass slipper remains.