Search - Tiger Lillies :: Brothel to Cemetery

Quickly becoming my favorite band

06/15/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There's no defining The Tiger Lillies. What initially attracted me to them was a sticker on the CD with a reviewer's quote that said "Tom Waits on helium." Being a big Waits fan, I gave it a spin. I might say it's more like Brecht channeled through Tom Waits.The Tiger Lillies have a distinctively European sound to them, but it's often a burlesque noise that stands in contrast to the bizarre lyrics about freaks, geeks, whores, and the hopeless. In the Lillies' world, the madness of man is a carnival, as they say in Roll Up, "Our life is a sideshow attraction: death, decay and disease."One is reminded, listening to this CD, of Nero, mad and fiddling while Rome burned. However, there is an undercurrent of tragedy in the ballads that, just when you're ready to accept the view in the funhouse mirror you've been looking at, cuts through to the bone and reminds you that all this pain and filth is for real.Make no mistake, while some of these songs are a lot of fun, this is not a fun or pretty album. However, if you have a tender spot in your heart for nihilistic iconoclasm presented with a drunken irony, then this may just be the band for which you've been looking."

"Nihilistically Inclined"

08/27/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"There are few ways to decribe this band and their music. The best way that I can think of is Tom Waits on helium and the Squirel Nut Zippers having a bad LSD trip and singing while the whole of Europe is crumbling in the background. The mood is one of surreal gloom, puncuated by an occassional bouncy accordian which mocks the destruction in the background. If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, stick this CD in for Music for the End of the Your World. It will make you feel better about it."

Anti-music for the post-everything world

J. Huang | Chicago, IL United States | 08/03/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These are the facts: Martin Jacques sings in a counter tenor, which basically means a falsetto; the Lillies have something against Jesus; this is the only of eleven albums (minus Shockheaded Peter, which is kind of something else) that the Lillies have allowed to be distributed in the States; if you have not heard the Lillies' music (and you would know if you did) you will have no idea how to take it at first; if you are not a complete idiot the Tiger Lillies will soon become something of a religion for you, and you will log onto their official website, which is just their name with the suffix "com," and purchase all of their other albums, but especially the one called Ad Nauseum, which is kind of like Brothel to the Cemetery on methamphetamine. You have been informed."