++.5: If three girls with cellos sounds like your thing, check out Transylvania Regurgitations (Sony), by Rasputina.
I admit it. I was prepared to pan Transylvania Regurgitations. When three of the six songs on the EP were different mixes of the same song, even if one of the mixes was done by Marilyn Manson, the band obviously needs to get some more material.
But then I heard it, hiding in the last slot on the CD, right behind the third version of Transylvanian Concubine." The words came sneaking out of my speaker, "I got a brand new pair of roller skates. You got a brand new key."
Finally, someone did a remake of one of the most fun songs of the '70s. "I roller skate, I ride my bike, don't drive no car./ Don't go too fast, but I go pretty far." The world was a dark, dark place before Melanie Safka wrote "Brand New Key," and now the Ladies' Cello Society turns it into a dark, dark song. This is great.
Rasputina is a band consisting of three ladies with cellos, it was a concept waiting to happen, sort of like The Groove Trolls--which was an Athens band in which everyone played bass guitar--except Rasputina's gothic.
Well, to mention Marilyn Manson again, they opened for him on one of his tours, and he also plays keyboards on Regurgitations, so that should give you some idea what they sound like. Oh, and Rasputina dresses in corsets also, so they even look like him.
