The Lindbergh Baby
Hoodwinked

Michael Moynihan is a reclusive character, not fond of the spotlight, not one to expose himself unnecessarily, which is why the few times he has made an appearance, he has managed to amaze, literally astonish every respectable fan of industrial, neo-folk sonorities and beyond.

A sort of King Midas of the Apocalypse, over time he has earned the status of a 100% guarantee man, and this with only one official album (the unmissable "The Gospel Of Inhumanity"), a few other releases under the name Blood Axis, and sporadic collaborations (Boyd Rice & Friends, Les Joyaux de la Princesse, Fire + Ice, In Gowan Ring, Witch-Hunt being the most notable).

This time, however, Moynihan seems to have missed the mark, and in a big way: not so much because of the scarce and insignificant direct contribution he may have provided for the creation of this album, but for endorsing a disappointing project, worse still: negligible, very negligible.

We are talking about Scott Broderick's Lindbergh Baby, a young American singer-songwriter devoted to anonymous country-rock that has little in common with the apocalyptic folk one might expect given the mentor behind it: not even the violin of the ever-excellent Annabel Lee (Moynihan's partner), nor the mixing work of Robert Ferbrache (another founding pillar of Blood Axis), nor Moynihan's accordion and background drumming will lift this underwhelming debut to a bare passing grade. To be clear, even before it's a bad work (which it really isn't), its flaw is being useless. Useless especially for country fans, who can certainly satisfy their rural and desert cravings elsewhere, turning to much better authors. But also useless for apocalyptic folk aficionados, who won't know what to do (I have an idea) with this record, as it has little to nothing in common with their genre.

Released in 2007, "Hoodwinked" is the debut work of this small musician described by the Fals Flag label as a proponent of a kind of "Psychoactive Folklore," an unhappy mix of folk, country, and gothic. The eight tracks flow by in absolute anonymity, between yawns and bursts of subcutaneous nervousness caused by the prevailing sensation of "all too familiar," so much so that by the end of the listen it's unclear if the sparse 29 minutes of the album's duration are too few or too many. Too few because a glass of air would be more substantial; too many because as one ages, one shouldn't disdain the single half-hour granted by grace, as every half-hour is precious and shouldn't be wasted (to use a euphemism).

More than anything, it is Broderick's monotonous wheeze that grates, reminiscent of Dinosaur JR's Mascis. But one Mascis is more than enough in rock history: and if for me getting through a Little Dinosaur album is already an achievement, imagine how hard it is to endure the dragged and poorly chewed vowels of the most pathetic of his imitators.

Of the entire work we could just about save a couple of tracks: “Cassilda's Song” starts with Robert A. Lang's reading of LaVey's Diciasettesima Chiave Econiana; and while this choice seems rather out of place (considering the music calls to mind cacti, dust, and coyotes rather than incense and desecrated churches), in the end, this opening is still the most original idea of the album. And that says it all. Broderick's satanic (and pro-Nazi...) country has the advantage in this single instance of vaguely recalling certain things by Current 93 from the nineties (sorry Tibet for using your name in vain!), finally guiding the album's atmosphere back to its deceptively disturbing cover. Broderick's voice is more inspired and evocative here, the hypnotic guitar riff enchants even while scraping the bottom of the apocalyptic barrel. Another salvageable piece follows: the lively “Media Boss”, a spirited ride that manages to enliven a rather stagnant situation, a desolate and desolating landscape dotted with saccharine country-tinged whines of disarming banality, occasionally invigorated by Herr Kammerer's electric guitar and the otherwise talented Amber Rae's enchanting voice in the backing vocals.

For the record, the band's moniker is supposed to refer to a well-known 1932 news event: the kidnapping and senseless murder by an unbalanced individual of Charles Lindbergh Junior, the firstborn son of Charles Lindbergh, the American aviator who made history in 1927 for being the first to fly across the Atlantic from New York to Paris without stopping. In truth, Lindbergh was also accused of harboring Nazi sympathies (hooray!), received the Cross of the Order of the Eagle directly from the Fuhrer (a gold medal with four small swastikas, an honor given to foreigners for services rendered to the Third Reich), and followed with great respect the strengthening of Hitler's Germany while his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh published "The Wave Of The Future," later defined as "the bible of every American Nazi" (really, heartfelt compliments!).

So: one more reason to ignore this squalid release.