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Mar 05, 2019 Amanda Palmer By Stephen Axeman

Some albums articulate themselves like finely chiseled sculptures. They depict the diverse panoply of sensation through a shared sensibility that elevates the disparate snapshots into a common aesthetic approach that holds them all together. Other albums prefer to maintain the identity of the particular, touring us through a swirl of memories and experiences that individually contain snippets of profound truth, but when added together seem more like a scrapbook or photo album.

Amanda Palmer‘s latest, There Will Be No Intermission, is squarely in the latter category. The collaging of traumas and narratives that blend the experiences of her community with her own personal struggles and the overarching political climate is ambitious to say the least. Given that the album is spread over 20 tracks with instrumental passages bookending each vocal track, two of which clock in at over 10 minutes, it is an exercise not only in content, but form as well. Though occasionally there are moments that feel as though the form was decided in advance, and the links between the tracks are not always fully articulated, the album largely does a good job of exploring the ideas contained within each track.

This sense of diversity, or disorganization, depending on which side you favor, is at the heart of the album’s genesis as a crowdsourced project that relied on the community’s contributions for both financial and narrative reasons. Palmer is largely faithful to her patrons, as one would expect, and in these moments where you can feel her reach across and speak to a particular fan the essence of the album is most distilled. It is lushly orchestrated, but still lyrically predominant, and for this reason it can feel both healing and like a sermon. This is an album of unusual candor, underscored by a persistent will intent on healing. (www.amandapalmer.net)

Author rating: 6.5/10