College Rock: Liz Janes' Poison & Snakes

“Wonderkiller,” the opening song on Liz Janes’ second album, Poison & Snakes, is prime David Lynch soundtrack material.

There’s a scene in the first season of David Lynch’s TV series, Twin Peaks, where the friends of the murdered Laura Palmer record a song in her honor. James (Laura’s boyfriend), Donna (Laura’s best friend), and Maddy (Laura’s look alike cousin) sing a 50’s type love ballad with resonating guitar and the girls singing oohing backups to James’ falsetto lead. The scene evokes Lynch’s obsession with the 1950’s, importing 50’s style into what was supposedly a contemporary tale in the 1990’s. While the song is akin of the 50’s tragic-love ballads, there’s a sense that Lynch is actually pointing towards the dark underbelly of a pristine, caked-over society. The ethereal song brings all of this to the surface, much like Lynch’s panning shot in the movie, Blue Velvet, coursing up through the soil, grubs, and maggots, emerging onto the perfectly manicured lawns.

“Wonderkiller” dives beneath the manicured lawn of a “true love,” an apparently good relationship which is actually crawling with grubs, maggots, and decay. That “true love” is actually a wonderkiller, putting to death the speaker’s sense of wonder, awe, and faith in God. While to many this “true love” would appear to be just that, the speaker has realized the dark underbelly of such a relationship, one which is taking her away from God.

Janes’ blend of 50’s balladry, jazz, and a bordering-on-punk chorus, act like that song from Twin Peaks. It pulls you into that nostalgic pop rock feeling while twisting, turning, and revealing something quite tragic.

Friends of the Danielson Famile and Sufjan Stevens, Janes’ is a part of an ethereal, neo-traditionalist trend in Gospel music, also found in Sixteen Horsepower/Woven Hand. Where David Eugene Edwards (16HP/Woven Hand) takes this ethereal, neo-traditional sound in a bluegrass tradition, Janes’ takes a jazz/soul jazz, reflecting her own musical background. She’s cabaret in the Old West; she’s jazz in pop rock; she’s surrounded by folk instruments while breaking out with punk ferocity. Because of these varied dimensions, plus an true independent sound, Janes lands in the College Rock section according to my Music Spectrum (please see my site, Music Spectrum, for an explanation). The College Rock section could rightly be called the Art Rock section for the tendency towards avant-garde, indie, and experimental.

Her poetry takes common phrases from Scripture or preaching, able to turn on their vibrancy once again through her accompanying images and turn of phrase. The title track lyric “crooked old tree” jumps out like just another description of the cross, but listen to the full phrase: “How’d you go and pick me on that crooked old tree/Among all of them berries much riper than me?”—a rich description of grace, picked for salvation not by our merit but by God’s grace. “Poison & Snakes” uses the Genesis-laden image to remind us of what the fall into sin really does to us: “Without you I’m all poison/the things I do all turn to snakes/it’s all snakes, it’s all snakes without you/Without you it all goes crumble.”

This songcraft makes “Wonderkiller” an excellent song for a devotion/Bible study. c See an example of using this song for a devotion by going to SongDevotions.

The ethereal, neo-traditional sound does make albums like Poison & Snakes an acquired taste. The album does not remain at any one intensity or tempo for very long. It can tend to drift off before you’re even ready for the rhythm to drop out or stop. Poison & Snakes needs to be heard as a collection, the ebbs and flows setting you up for bursts like the chorus singers on “Deep Sea Diver” and the emotional crescendos on “Go Between.” Those lows make the highs that much more of a release.

Thanks to Liz Janes and Asthmatic Kitty Records for the review
copy.