Legendary Pink Dots
Plutonium Blonde (ROIR)
release: October 7, 2008
style: abstract ghostly gloom
similar: IAMX, Bauhaus, Tear Garden, the Residents
[rating: ****] A longtime cornerstone of underground gloom, the Pink Dots have released dozens of albums while musical trends of the past few decades have come and gone. On Plutonium Blonde, Edward Ka-Spel and company have created a mad world of odd lyricism and warped, imaginative sounds. Blonde is chilling ("Rainbows Too") and other times relatively down to earth ( "A World With No Mirrors" trades in surrealism for acoustic guitar, flute and Ka-Spel's aching vocal). "My First Zonee" is one of the stranger excerpts - "milking the cow with my first zonee/out on the trail i'll spank the pony," which actually seems to be a song about a cell phone. "Oceans Blue" follows through on its title, an ambient piece that surfaces from dark waters. This outsider band is miles away from the mainstream. So far away that they could be from another planet. -Kenyon