PERPLEXIONS (AS MELORA CREAGER)

Other than piano on the opening track, this is a purely solo effort by Melora Creager and even released under her name rather than that of Rasputina, although most of these songs would end up in the Rasputina repertoire and that piano player was Jonathan TeBeest who was a member of the band at the time. This was also the second release on Creager's own Filthy Bonnet label, with all the others before or since being Rasputina records. All songs were written, arranged and produced by Creager except "American Girl" which was written by Tom Petty and has been covered by everyone from Roger McGuinn to Taylor Swift.

And this isn't a full-length CD either, just an EP not even quite twenty minutes long but with Creager managing to squeeze in seven songs in that space.

Like I said, most of these would show up later on either studio, compilation or live Rasputina albums. Only "Lunar Girl Explorer" would become (somewhat) well-known by fans. My biggest complaint with these songs is that none of them seems fully developed, and most of them sound quite stripped-down, especially in comparison with anything Rasputina or Creager had done prior. This is especially true of "American Girl", which plods along with what sounds like overdubbed vocals and cello to give the impression of a duo but that according to the liner notes is just Creager. She would perfect her interpretation of the song later and has an outstanding rendition on the 'Melora a la Basilica' live CD released in 2008.

Otherwise this is an interesting but not particularly memorable solo offering for Creager, issued as a preface to the first full-length recording on her new label, the two-disc 'Oh Perilous World'. I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find this EP, but all the subsequent studio releases on her label are progressively better so each of them merits some attention. Two stars as a collector piece but no more.

peace