Halo Star

Artist: Black Tape for a Blue Girl
Label: Projekt Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 617026015828
EAN: 0617026015828
ASIN: B0002LE9QI

Release Date: 2004-08-31

Halo Star

Related Categories:

General

| Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Goth

| Goth & Industrial | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

Adult Alternative

| Pop | Styles | Music

Tracks:

Glow
Tarnished
The Gravediggers
Your Love Is Sweeter Than Wine
Indefinable, Yet
Knock Three Times
Scarecrow
Damn Swan!
Already Forgotten
The Fourth Footstep
Dagger
Halo Star

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As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire
The Scavenger Bride
This Lush Garden Within
Remnants of a Deeper Purity
Ashes in the Brittle Air

Customer Reviews:

pretty good for black tape, not good for goth..........2005-12-21

I like old school goth, and I like mellow music, and this is kind of neither. Old school goth has a neat, creepy element to it, mellow music makes you relax. This record kind of makes you feel, well, a little stupid. If you know BTFABG, then you pretty much know what to expect, because their music hasn't changed in many years. There are exceptions, depending upon who's on what record. Sometimes they change, for better or worse. But the basic formula, and I think there is pretty much a basic formula, is so predictable that once you get more than 6 seconds into a song you're thinking "deja vu" time. All the great reviews made me buy this cd and "Scavenger Bride" and well, sometimes the samples you get online just aren't long enough. I can get the atmosphere of what they're trying to convey, but I don't get any substance.
And I think that's what's important. There's no meat to the bone. And if you listen to "Knock Three Times" you'll be wishing it was Tony Orlando and Dawn. 'Nuff said.

Halo Star Glows.......2005-10-28

I must admit, in the past I didn't care much for Black Tape for a Blue Girl's music. I just failed to understand all the appraisal they were receiving from the Gothic darkwave scene, and yet with each new release I continued to buy their albums anyway simply because there was always at least one or two songs I really enjoyed. However, several years later and more into this genre than ever before, BTfaBG has vastly grown on me.

Perhaps they're an acquired taste but now I lick this stuff up like it's dessert! 'Halo Star' opens with a haunting Middle Eastern flair that continues on to the next track, "Tarnished", and is one of their more upbeat songs while the others are mostly slower paced. The use of instruments are otherwordly and delicately played with dark, gloomy rhythms that consist of melancholy lyrics often sung by lush female vocalist, Elysabeth Grant, and are usually chock-full of heartache and despair. Bret Helm also lends his brooding voice to many of the pieces here and sounds a lot like Voltaire on the quirky "Knock Three Times". The most notable track for me, though, would have to be "Damn Swan!" It may be short (clocking in at a little over 3 minutes in length) but is achingly beautiful...

Just classic perfection heard throughout; presented in a subtle fashion.

Beautful, wistful, lovely.......2005-03-13

I resisted listening to BTFABG for years. And when I did hear them, it was completely out of context, just a random track here & there, so I wrote them off. What a mistake! I'm glad I came back to them and gave "Halo Star" a listen.

They remind me immediately of the old Dead Can Dance. Where DCD went deeply into experimenting with period and culturally specific instruments, this album still retains that otherwordly quality that I fell in love with all those years ago that DCD embodied so perfectly.

Each song flows into each other softly and smoothly. There's nothing scary or disjointed about them at all. The album itself transformed me to this sort of dreamy aural landscape. It's like a personal soundtrack to your own independent film all about you!

It doesn't surprise me that BTFABG has not and never will hit the mainstream. In a way, I hope they don't so I can keep them as a precious secret and dazzle the uninitiated. Don't you?

different.......2004-09-24

I say this album is different because it is rather different to thier other albums, and despite my favorite album of thiers being remnants, i love this album just as much. I feel that sometimes this album is reminiscent of old moody blues. Trippy and folky mixed in with synth and flute. If anyone knows old Moody albums, then you may agree with me. This album may not be for everyone, but, i belive i am not everyone. I listen to alot of stuff that a lot of people don't like, and visa versa.
Now to an actuall "review"
The first songs are rather intense and two other songs on this album pop as such.
As for every thing else it sounded much more folky, and as i mentioned before moody bluesish. if you like previous albums be opened minded to this.
I'm a little up for time so this is my crap review.

Halo and smoke comes down from Heaven.......2004-09-22

When I mention Halo and smoke, it is a metaphor for the feeling I got when listening to the cd; its components of the character Halo on the cd with the visceralness of the music (smoke), which then translated into my sensation awareness of what went on during the live show which I booked in Boise, where I live. The show was amazing and full of sights and sounds to behold and savor, and my intense awareness of the smoke that filled the stage from the fog machine really heightened my overall impression of this cd. This cd is subtle, and it has grown on me since the time I originally heard it when Sam Rosenthal sent it to me as a promoter's copy.

Much of the music on this cd may seem too subtle to the average listener of darkwave and ethereal music (or even the average music lover); but upon further inspection, a rawness and depth is so clearly present in the songs included on this album, and the common thread of the character Halo is stitched perfectly into the fabric of the songs as they trail each other...each successively more complex than the next. Highlights include "Tarnished" which is the official opener on this album, even though "Glow" comes before it as a prelude to "Tarnished" brushing beautiful Eastern drumbeats and an eerie soundscape of what is to come. "Scarecrow" is wonderfully layered with male vocals over intense music and mystification. "Knock three times" provides a lighter but not-to-be-forgotten presence with its bit of campy humor alongside whispered piano and dark vocal styling. "Dagger" is easily one of my favorites on this album. When I hear this track, I feel as though I am instantly one and the same with a brilliant ray of light and mist radiating from the descending ashes of sadness that seems to weigh so heavily upon the tapestry of this musical expression. It is that complex, and heavenly male vocals mesh perfectly with the unbroken progression of this amazing, understated song. All tracks are replete with unique style and have their own story to tell, magnified by Bret Helm's (of Audra) marvelous, dark and breathy voice and Elysabeth Grant's supernatural vocals coming through the drumbeats and wall of sound in the music surrounding it.

"Already Forgotten", though beautifully full of Elysabeth Grant's achingly haunted vocals, seems almost a little too repetitious of music on other albums. But the way the piano dances around the voice in this track is quite mesmerizing. Despite remnants here and there from black tape's previous material (which is not a detriment), their newest offering has as much substance as any other album I've listened to, perhaps more with the additon of one of the strongest and most hypnotic male singers I have ever had the privilege of hearing (live and recorded).

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