Oh Perilous World
Oh Perilous World | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | June 26, 2007 | |||
Length | 70:47 | |||
Label | Filthy Bonnet | |||
Rasputina chronology | ||||
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Oh Perilous World, the fifth full-length
Origin and recording
Following the release of her 2006 solo album, Perplexions, singer/lead cellist Melora Creager spent the time scouring world events and adapting them into songs. She said:
"I wrote the songs featured on Oh Perilous World over the last two years when I realized that current world events were more bizarre than anything I could scrounge up from the distant past. I obsessively read daily news on the Internet and copied words, phrases and whole stories that especially intrigued me and compiled a vast notebook of this material."[2]
Concept
The storyline of Oh Perilous World, essentially, is an audit of six years of post-9/11 America and its domestic and foreign policies under President George W. Bush's administration, but told through a fictional steampunk parallel universe. In this world, America is ruled by the tyrannical Queen of Florida, Mary Todd Lincoln, threatening war and occupation of the small, third-world sovereign of Pitcairn Islands (a metaphor for the Middle East) using her blimps and airships. Her opposite number in Pitcairn is an Osama bin Laden-like resistance leader, Thursday October Christian I (in real life the offspring of Fletcher Christian, leader of the Bounty mutineers who settled on the island).[3]
Critical reception
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
allmusic | [4] |
PopMatters | [5] |
Prefix | [3] |
Rate Your Music | [6] |
Travis Woods of Prefix commented, "The strange alt-history storyline works by allowing the listener to step back from the haunting immediacy of current events and yet still gauge the emotional heft and consequence of the pixelated horrors broadcast on our nightly news...Having loosened their corsets enough to allow modern resonance to finally seep into one of their albums, the members of Rasputina have contributed to the pantheon of good art created in the wake of terrible events. Here's hoping, though, that next time around we'll hear an album of great art, with a world less ready to inspire with its televised peril. Or, at the very least, that they'll leave the rawk-guitar bombast for the
Track listing
All songs written by Melora Creager.[7][8]
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "1816, The Year Without a Summer" | 4:23 |
2. | "Choose Me for Champion" | 2:36 |
3. | "Cage in a Cave" | 3:50 |
4. | "Incident in a Medical Clinic" | 3:52 |
5. | "Draconian Crackdown" | 4:02 |
6. | "Child Soldier Rebellion" | 3:49 |
7. | "Oh Bring Back the Egg Unbroken" | 3:55 |
8. | "Old Yellowcake Breaking News" | 0:35 |
9. | "In Old Yellowcake" | 4:05 |
10. | "We Stay Behind" | 3:19 |
11. | "A Retinue of Moons / The Infidel is Me" | 7:05 |
12. | "The Pruning" | 4:18 |
Total length: | 45:56 |
Standard Edition bonus tracks
- "The Question of Time" - 2:39
- "Identity Tokens" - 4:54
- "The Humanized Mice" - 2:19
- "The Pruning (Pat O'Brian & Access Hollywood Mix)" - 4:17
- "Flood Corps" - 1:36
- "Incapable of Regret" - 2:02
- "Desert Vampire" - 1:36
- "The Contractors" - 2:09
- "Infidel Instrumental Demo" - 3:26
Charts
Year | Chart | Position [9] |
---|---|---|
2010 | Top Heatseekers | 25 |
Credits and personnel
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References
- ^ ""Rasputina's Official Web Site - History"". 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-06-29. Retrieved 2007-06-27.
- ^ CMJ News Story Archived 2007-10-13 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c Woods, Travis (2007-06-25). "Rasputina Oh Perilous World". Prefix. Archived from the original on 2012-09-19. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
- ^ allmusic. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
- ^ a b Kelly, Jennifer (2007-06-28). "Rasputina: Oh Perilous World PopMatters review". PopMatters. Archived from the original on 2012-05-05. Retrieved 2010-11-21.
- ^ "Oh Perilous World by Rasputina - RYM/Sonemic".
- ^ "Oh Perilous World [Limited Edition]". Amazon. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
- ^ "Oh Perilous World". Amazon. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
- Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
- ^ Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-11-20.