From Iceland — Contalgen Funeral: Pretty Red Dress

‘Pretty Red Dress,’ the debut album from Contalgen Funeral, is definitely one of the most laughable pieces of wannabe bluescore posturing I’ve seen and heard in quite a while. The whole album, from the cover art to songs such as “Crack Cocaine,” “Bottom Of The Bottle” and “Not Dead Yet,” trades in every lame deprivation-porn blues stereotype going. Homeless and alone? Check! Drinking yourself to death? Got that! Drug abuse? They’ll suck a dick for crack cocaine!
At first I thought this had to be a glorious pisstake or some kind of twisted blues parody, but if it is then it’s not a very good one. And singer/songwriter Andri Már Sigurðsson has previous form on tortured blues with his other band, Joe Dubius. Constantly wailing and hurring, he’s desperate to be seen as a bit of a Tom Waits/Seasick Steve style hard-bitten chronicler of hard times, yet is so cornball from the outset, you wince with every line (the closest he’s probably come to a needle in his arm was when he got his inoculations from the doctor).
If you believe that playing folksy-swingy-blues whilst wearing old oversized suits somehow grants some kind of vague esoteric knowledge and gravitas to whatever crap is being sung, then I’m sure you’ll love this. Otherwise, this will offer little more than some unintentional laughs.