Shannon Wright’s third album Dyed In The Wool sounds like one foggy nightmare after the other. And her tortured lyrics are so acute, you hope she’s only dreaming. But when her barren and hollow vocals grieve “There’s no cure, so why should I care. You have fled into this blackness.” (“A Vessel for a Minor Malady”) and “There goes your body in a box. That is all I have left. Now this odor lines my shaking bed.” (“Dyed in The Wool”), the panged pall she casts seems to stem from her reality.

Several of the album’s 12 tracks contain sparse, acoustic guitar and piano melodies driven by ¾ or 3/8 time rhythms to create wicked little waltzes. She may be at her best, though, when she rocks a little harder. The eerie, electric dirges and forlorn vocals of “Less Than A Moment” and “The Path of Least Persistence” recall PJ Harvey and Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth). But while Harvey’s songs tend to get repetitive and uninteresting after the three-minute mark, and Sonic Youth love to journey into noisy meanderings around the same point, Shannon Wright trims away the fat leaving only the single-length goodness. Sometimes she shaves too much, though. You actually wish you could spend a little more time in the haunted dreamscape of “Hinterland” and on “A Vessel for a Minor Malady.”

Shannon Wright’s world is dark and undesirable. If you’re unfortunate enough to be able to relate to her, or you’re a voyeur of angst who likes your agony in tight little packages, then Dyed In The Wool delivers.

- Dave Powers
(As posted 8/13/01 on 3wk.com)