Review: Audra

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Audra
“Going to the Theatre”
(Projekt Records)

What do you get when you mix a couple of ambiguously-gay brothers, a bunch of Lou Reed records, a touch of black eyeliner, leather bomber jackets, and bad haircuts?  Apparently, you get Audra-a two-piece goth band that really is little more than poetry read/sung over soft guitar strumming and even softer synthesizers.  Not exactly my cup of tea (and I’d reckon yours either), but you’ve got to give Ace and Gary (actually Bret and Bart) credit for doing something entirely different.  I mean, if the mainstream is London, they are Tokyo.  Without a care for melody or aesthetics, the brothers weave jerky lyrics with just enough instruments to keep themselves out of the “spoken word” category.  I imagine there were a lot of candles in the recording studio, along with sepia pictures of Morrissey and Robert Smith.  Full of melancholy and misanthropic tendencies, Audra honestly seems to enjoy twisting the musical knife lodged firmly in its own back, heaping haunting refrain upon death shrouded, metaphysical references.  Only those with a dealers’ supply of Prozac need apply.