Grey Oceans

I'm pretty sure I read once that fairies use music to lure humans into a fatal sleep. Not wanting to take any chances after my first listen of CocoRosie's Grey Oceans, I brewed black tea and kept a vigilant eye.

For their fourth full-length and first release on Sub Pop, sisters Sierra and Bianca Casady channel spirits of past albums for tracks like R.I.P. Burn Face and Fairy Paradise. But they capture something altogether different and a little darker for The Moon Asked the Crow, which sounds like a Baroque concerto on LSD. Each song seems to have its own distinct mood here, like Smokey Taboo with its Middle Eastern influence and Hopscotch, book-ended by ragtime piano. Filled with soft, tinkering, music-box beats, weird sounds probably made with toys, and plaintive lyrics about prayer and party balloons, Grey Oceans is pitched-down spoken word for the more stalwart lovers of scary-dreamy, forest fairy hip-hop.