The Big Issue July 25, 1995 "New
Releases" by Rob Mitchell
A new solo album arrives from the other half of Swans too. Jarboe is perceived as playing second fiddle to Gira and, I'm afraid, Sacrificial Cake does little to redress the balance. It starts intriguingly enough. "Lavender Girl" has chants, echoes and a beat which only ever manages four pulses before fading away. Jarboe's voice is rich and vaporous here as on the steamy, tropical "Ode to V" with its bass drones and loose-limbed eastern percussion. The metallic pipe breaths and eery strings in "Shimmer 1" are ghostly; as the beat fades in and out overlapping church-organ sound on "Not Logical," the brew of disembodied elements begins to make sense. Sadly from here on in things take a turn for the worst. The album runs out of tricks and starts to sound like a drab version of Cocteau Twins at their darkest. Lyrically, out host turns to Middle Earthisms ("Troll Lullaby") and gothic averload ("The Body Lover"). "Deflowered" stands clear, its out of character take on Bunnymen Beat-pop is pretty good, but by "Shimmer 2," there have been too many Jabberwockys, too many medieval vocals and too little of tangible worth. The record finishes in a welter of troll-eating sounds, having created an appetite it could not satisfy.
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