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 Caught in the Carousel - "There will be music despite everything"
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Sharron Kraus
The Woody Nightshade
Strange Attractors Audio House
"The flowers you pluck/Surly will wither in your hands," warns Sharron Kraus on her new long player. A ten-song mediation on the range of loss, The Woody Nightshade is a modern Goth folk masterpiece. "He left me with nothing/But I can't complain/For I had nothing/Before he came," Kraus sings on "Nothing" accompanied only by an aching acoustic guitar, that creaks behind her. Everything, in fact, creaks with dark majesty behind Kraus, as she surveys the wreckage of the past and reconciles it with the losses of the present. Armed with a gorgeous weariness, Kraus's voice haunts the marshes or soars darkly with the hawks. "Heaviness Of Heart" is a spare and brooding number that finds her declaring "Joy and sorrow always intertwine"; "Once" wistfully explores the loss of love; "Rejoice In Love" urges what the title suggests, but cautions that everything joyful turns to its opposite and the heavy "Traveler Between The Worlds" has more than a touch of foreboding. Though these may be lullabies suffused with dread and despair, there's a strange comfort when you follow Kraus into the woods. Maybe it's the finesse of her voice, or the practicality of her worldview—whatever it is, you'll never regret taking these dark paths.
—Alex Green
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