Mary Timony

Baroque pop songstress Mary Timony returns with her second solo effort, featuring richer instrumental textures along with the same dark images that have populated her work since the first two albums from her band Helium. Considering Timony's penchant for sombre minor-key ballads and the demons that hold sway over her songs, she has an incredible knack for penning intoxicating and sublime pop music. Her unshakable sense of melody seems to root itself in the world of ye olde English folk music. Somewhat like the medieval imagery of fairies dancing with abandon before getting squashed by some ogre's mace, The Golden Dove is an intense mixture of sweet and sour. Sure, there is lots of death, but sometimes we can be seduced by Timony's sweet earthbound vocals and fine hooks on tracks like "Blood Tree," "Magic Power," "Dryad and the Mule" and "Musik and the Charming Melodee." Although Timony performs almost all of the instrumentation, she is assisted by a similar musical iconoclast, Mark Linkous (of Sparklehorse), acting as both producer and musician.