The M.C. Hammer mentality that says a music group needs more than 10 members to succeed doesn't apply to the rock/metal/grunge duo Jucifer.
In fact, the two, who are actually a married couple, do just fine on their own. Their new album I Name You Destroyer proves exactly that. That only two people are performing on this record seems impossible.
An array of sounds come from every direction -- I'm not even really sure what is what. I do know that lead singer Amber Valentine has a stinging, scary, lingering voice that could break glass.
Valentine's voice is a little too spooky for my liking. You know the feeling you get when you turn on your CD player, forgot that it was set on the highest volume and then you almost jump and cling to the ceiling like a scared cat?
Well, this whole album evokes that feeling in me. Even when Valentine tones her screams down she sounds like the voice of a freaky ghost, not to say that others more into this kind of music wouldn't think that she sounds like an angel.
Either way, there is no denying Valentine's talent as a singer and guitar player. Her range on the guitar is something you have to hear to believe.
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If you were big on the whole Seattle/Nirvana grunge thing and have been waiting for something that could come close to the intensity of the movement, your wait is over. If Nirvana had an affair with a blond, big-haired, out-of-her-mind porn star, Jucifer would have been born.
But unlike the Seattle grunge music-going-mainstream fad, Jucifer doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.
Most of the album makes me feel like I am either really drunk or having a really terrible hangover. I can't imagine what a Jucifer concert must be like. All I can picture is a huge mosh pit and crazy flashing lights. No need for recreational drugs while seeing Jucifer; the duo's music alone can make you feel strangely high.
And if that's not enough craziness for you, one of the last tracks on the album, "firefly," steps out of Jucifer's box with bongo drum music played by normally violent drummer Ed Livengood.
That's not the last surprise on the album.
It is obvious that this wasn't just slapped together like some albums out there, but carefully and weirdly calculated.
And I have to admit that I hated this album on the first listen. But in all fairness I gave it a second go round and I almost felt like it was an entirely different sound. I guess it's one of those things that just has to grow on you like a fungus, but not a gross fungus, a really wild, mysterious, emotionally complicated fungus.
Oh yeah, this fungus sure can sing with a voice that I'm not sure is scary or just downright genius.
You can decide for yourself when Jucifer comes to Albuquerque's Launchpad at 618 Central Ave. on March 26 at 8 p.m.
