Local Juju, "E"
Vital Stats: Local Juju is a Port Orange alternative rock band featuring Helena Yates on vocals and acoustic and electric guitars; her husband, Jeff Yates, on bass and vocals; her brother Jaime Tauler on drums, percussion and vocals; and Rodney Dorrough on electric guitar.
The Music: The alt-rock group says their music "has been described as a mixture of rock, grunge and Celtic folk with gothic undertones."
That may be true of the 12 tracks on "E," but only in a beauty-and-the-beast, yin-yang sort of way. That is, "E" is divided between murmuring, faintly gothic, airy alt-rock featuring the fairy-voiced Helena Yates, and beastly, mutant blues rock featuring brother Jaime roaring over blustery electric guitars. The CD also includes "John and Yoko," an alt-rock track featuring hubby Jeff on vocals.
"Where do we go when we sleep?" Helena purrs over timid, jangly guitars on "Dreams." "Are we brain waves, machine beeps? Or are we sometimes traveling without space and time? And if so, could you tell me why we make ourselves so blind, forgetting all the places we've left behind?"
"State of the World" finds Tauler bellowing over doom-laden, blues-rock guitar: "Are we a blessing or are we a curse? In a race to see who can be first to infest the universe, don't you think we should fix this world first? Or are we just insects who hail from the planet Earth?"
The CD closes with the haunting "Catcher in the Rye," a stark ballad with echoes of Celtic folk and inspiration drawn from the children's nursery rhyme rather than J.D. Salinger's novel of teen angst.
With an incantatory voice that sounds like a forlorn, lost Irish fairy, Helena quietly chants: "Children upon the edge of a cliff ... don't be afraid of danger, oh no. Run and play and laugh for I am the Catcher in the Rye and I will protect you ... .
"For we are warriors trained to battle, and tigers of the night, though I fight it every day at my own doorstep, shadowboxing with the candlelight, battling my own horror of the dark ... There is no cliff at all, there is no cliff at all, you just believe that's the way it is."
You'll Like This If You Like: The Cranberries, Sinead O'Connor, Tori Amos (for Helena's songs), the White Stripes (for the testosterone-fueled tracks)
Website: localjuju.com
CD Available At: Amazon.com, iTunes
