(From Paste)
This Birmingham, Ala., band takes its name from a Throwing Muses song, which took its title from the term used to describe mentally ill young people who gave themselves shallow cuts. Delicate Cutters frontwoman Janet Simpson shares with Kristin Hirsh a penchant for detailed, lived-in lyrics and a steely charisma. More crucially, the group unsurprisingly fills its songs with references to deep emotional scars, often alluding to harrowing events just off camera—as if they can’t bear to confront them too directly.
Following their self-released 2006 debut,We Are Not Lovers, Delicate Cutters return with Some Creatures, which reveals an increased confidence due perhaps to several years spent touring the southeast. They sound sharper and more nuanced, drawing from disparate folk and rock influences to craft inventive arrangements that hew closely to Simpson’s incisive songs. She can make a dark phrase like “I always thought that I might die” sound like a rousing chorus on opener “Picture of Health,” and turns “He’s in Los Angeles now” into a barely composed eulogy, making the title city sound like limbo. Avoiding flagrant confessionalism for narrative detail, Simpson can project anger or irony or uncomfortable intimacy with equal ease, but more than that, she simply projects a personality on Some Creatures, reminding you that every song derives from a single, unique perspective.
