Blindingly bizarre performance art live that thrives on spontaneity, crowd-band dynamics and free form improvisation its is difficult to envisage Queen Adreena’s gothic-white noise translating to the infinitely more rigid and 2D language of record without at least a few meanings being lost and embarrassing misunderstandings. This long awaited second CD opus however goes well beyond 2000’s debut ‘Taxidermy’ in attempting to grasp the vision of beauty and violence QA evoke live and shove the blighter onto a 4-inch disc. While ‘Taxidermy’ possessed a vulnerable, introspective beauty, full of delicate piano melodies and classical vocals ‘drink me’ distinctly heads more for the latter element of the bands dynamic, a brash, raw noisy record which is far more representative of where QA are at today. Despite its rare and surprisingly catchy, almost tune-like quality opener ‘Pretty Like Drugs’ sets the mood fairly aptly, portraying one grown woman in the midst of the most horrific child’s tantrum. Almost embarrassingly personal as they say ‘Kitty Collar Tight’ and ‘Siamese Almeida’ don’t let you off one bit, keeping up the same pounding, screeching, kicking and scratching pace. When things slow down forth track in on ‘Razorblade Sky’ they are by no means calmer, sounding just as abrasive as the title would suggest. There are rare reprises to the twisted lullabies of ‘Taxidermy’ on ‘Sleeping Pill’ and ‘My Silent Undoing’ but these only proceed slabs of pure, tuneless white noise, almost as wholly unlistenable as Katie and Crispin’s Daisy Chainsaw days on ‘Hotel Aftershow’. An alternately beautiful and horrific album which is perhaps the closest you can come to bottling and marketing one girls rage, ultimately however, its still totally incomparable to the visceral energy of experiencing them in the flesh.
/Alison