Mary Weiss
Dangerous Game

Are you familiar with the Shangri-Las? That excellent girl group from the '60s? The ones from “Heaven Only Knows” and “Leader Of The Pack”? Well, Mary Weiss was one of the singers, and a few years ago, she decided to record a new album after a long silence, doing so splendidly by signing with the fine Norton and being accompanied by the best garage band in recent years: the Reigning Sound!

The result is an excellent garage rock 'n' roll with an organ in the forefront, reminiscent of the last album by Reigning Sound “Love And Curses”, which indeed contains speeded-up versions of a couple of tracks here. The author of almost all the songs is precisely Greg “Oblivian” Cartwright who offers us a refined rock 'n' roll, with sixties and melancholic atmospheres, nothing raw and dirty or punk, if you know what I mean, as Greg had already accustomed us to with Reigning Sound itself (except for “Too Much Guitar” which was recorded in a harder version after the keyboardist left the group suddenly). In this case, however, perhaps to pay homage to the lady they play with, everything is even more delicate and rarefied and creates, also and especially thanks to Mary's splendid voice, a wonderful romantic and dreamy atmosphere.

It goes from the more energetic garage r’n’r of “Don’t Come Back”, “Stop And Think It Over”, and “Nobody Knows (But I Do)” to soulful songs like the splendid “You're Never Gonna See Me Cry” and “I Don’t Care” and onto sixties-flavored ballads like “Cry About The Radio” and “Stitch In Time”, not forgetting a splendid version with organ accompaniment of “Heaven Only Knows”.

An excellent mix of garage, r’n’r, soul, country that on its own cannot leave you indifferent, but then... then there's Mary's voice, and the whole reaches sublime heights: matured in tone, it's sweet and able to touch sensitive chords, even for those garage rock scoundrels like me; of course, compared to some of her colleagues, Mary Weiss doesn’t indulge in vocal trills and stylistic virtuosity, but simply because her normal voice is enough to enchant the listener and imprison them in the grooves of this record, and I give you my word: it's a splendid prison.

In the end, r’n’r is not just anger, energy, and sweat (without a doubt important characteristics and well known by Greg Cartwright) but is also heart and soul, and without these, it risks becoming cold, detached, and “fake”: “beware the soulless cool,” as Mr. Tim Kerr said, and he knows a thing or two about rock 'n' roll. Well, you'll find plenty of heart and soul in this album, along with an authentic joy of playing (just look at the sincere smiles the musicians show off in the photos on the back cover), which is a guarantee of authentic passion, another essential characteristic of rock 'n' roll and music in general, brought forth by the Reigning Sound and Mary Weiss in playing and recording this simply sublime album.