纽约异色乐队转投4AD打造直逼Cocteau Twins唯美经典 　　PopMatters、Filter、Playlouder、The Wire齐声力挺 　　一对学爵士乐出身的意大利孪生兄弟Simone、Amedeo Pace，加上艺术系日籍女主唱Kazu Makino，这样的乐团组成份子，似乎在某种程度上，已经先预告了Blonde Redhead声音上的独特性。 　　1993年成军于纽约后，Blonde Redhead骚动着狂躁因子的冷异美感，旋即获得Sonic Youth鼓手Steve Shelley注目，不仅网罗乐队至所属厂牌Smells Like Records旗下，并亲自为其製作首张同名专辑，随后十馀年间，于Touch & Go推出乐队风格最纯熟的经典作品《Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons》到转投英伦名厂4AD，从深受No Wave风潮影响的实验声响，到近期颓美浪漫的迷幻色彩，Blonde Redhead不断吸纳着音乐养分蜕变，并于2007年推出传媒评价和商业成绩皆攀上巅峰的《23》。 　　虽与前两张专辑同样由Fugazi灵魂人物Guy Picciotto坐镇打理，《Misery is A Butterfly》这张2004年Blonde Redhead投身4AD的处女作，无疑沾惹了这个孕育过Cocteau Twins、Dead Can Dance、Throwing Muses等经典乐队独立名厂的梦幻气息，而成为其音乐风格的重要分野。过去总被拿来与Sonic Youth等纽约独立班霸相提并论的实验噪音气息，顿时隐入悽楚华美的絃乐底层，展现出弥漫浓郁Dream Pop和Shoegaze气息的湿濡唯美，不论〈Melody〉与〈Magic Mountain〉用键盘烘托的脆弱萎靡气质，或随〈Elephant Woman〉和〈Misery Is A Butterfly〉直扑而来的清冷诡谲迷雾，那交织着脆弱、诲暗、浪漫而抑郁的混浊异色美感，都由《Misery is A Butterfly》蔓延开来，成为Blonde Redhead独一无二的标志。 　　by Heather Phares 　　In keeping with the group's move from Touch & Go to 4AD, Blonde Redhead's Misery Is a Butterfly is their darkest and most delicate album to date. The brilliant Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons and Melodie Citronique EP found the band moving away from the cerebral, no wave-influenced style of their earlier albums and toward a more intricate, emotional sound, but this album's preoccupation with filigree and shadow both reflects and represents the sensibilities of the label that released This Mortal Coil's Filigree and Shadow almost two decades earlier. The band's transition from their old home to their new one is smooth, but not as smooth as the album's actual sound; Misery Is a Butterfly's lush production and arrangements polish away with virtually all of the edges and angles that still informed their sound on their most recent recordings and pretty much defined their earliest ones. The move is both liberating and limiting: the album's soft focus allows Blonde Redhead to explore its relatively newfound romanticism more deeply than before -- particularly on the Eastern-tinged "Anticipation" -- but with less tension between the fragile and harsh aspects of the band's sound, its soft focus occasionally drifts into lack of focus. Songs such as "Melody" and the title track are lovely, but feel busier and more drawn-out than necessary; however, the indulgence that makes Misery Is a Butterfly's weakest moments somewhat ponderous also makes its best songs sweepingly romantic. The strings and keyboards that swirl around "Elephant Woman," "Doll Is Mine," and the gorgeous duet "Pink Love" give the album a brooding, overwrought feeling that conjures up fairy tales and lovesick recluses, and the album's song titles are just as evocative, alluding to love that is distorted, bruised, and in the case of "Equus," usually forbidden. There's something decadent about the album's layers of sound, and its wide scope paradoxically makes it one of Blonde Redhead's most insular albums; indeed, the indulgent isolation that permeates Misery Is a Butterfly makes it akin to Suede's Dog Man Star and Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain, in mood if not exactly in sound. The Blonde Redhead of old returns, somewhat, on more high-strung songs like "Falling Man" and "Maddening Cloud," both of which add some much-needed urgency to the album's mannered heartache. Misery Is a Butterfly might be a slightly less magical album than Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons because the listener is more aware of the effort going into the spell, but it's still an album of unusual grace.