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Rainer Maria's hooks subsist not in power chords and pop
sensibilities, but well-crafted songs and careful harmonies. The bass
often plays a more melodic role than the guitar and the drums counterpoint
their interplay. The male and female double vocals are at times unified,
at times harmonious, allowing the songs to move between straight ahead and
stereophonic. Thematically, the lyrics are mournful and convalescent,
stressing the recovery half of loss. RM's (still relatively new)
CDep includes six beautifully recorded and
harmony laden songs. Each song
is precisely constructed from a central idea and then elaborated upon by a
barrage of melodic, yet gripping, instrumentation and vocal work.
Two tours and five months later comes the release of New York:1955, the
brand new single. This record has to be one of the most unbelievably
inventive and inspired works ever. Stripped down instrumentation that
fades apart and then suddenly unites and explodes into a tear-jerking
combination of guitar and drum parts that lock together like a puzzle;
meanwhile, the vocal parts gradually build to a peaking point and then as
quickly as they climaxed, fall back to minimalistic beauty.