Recorded between Atlanta, Athens, and Chicago, Athens band Strezo has taken the long road to actually releasing an album. Between short jaunts from city to city and band leader, Kristen Strezo, having a child the band slowly pieced together what would become, Haunted House vol. 1. It might have taken forever and a lot of traveling and labor pains but the band has finally released it's own baby and Haunted House vol. 1 is a disturbed one to say the least.
It seems only fitting that Strezo's latest album is called, Haunted House vol. 1because the album plays out like a series of rooms that features a different environment and scary surprises behind every door. Theatrical and melodramatic, the record plays out like a series of strange act's that are slightly atonal, discomforting, and hard to get into. With vocals that are far better suited for theater than a rock and roll band, Kristen Strezo lends each of the ten songs on Haunted House vol. 1a sense of showmanship and histrionics. Her vocals are overpowering and quite honestly might just scare the bejesus out of you. That's not necessarily a bad thing but the fact that Srezo sounds like the Dresden Dolls on steroids is kind of a frightening proposition.
Haunted House vol. 1 is not a pop album, it's like listening to a radio play that's dramatized over a series of ten songs. While the album is not a concept album, it's unifying theme is the tense and theatrical music that makes it up. Haunted House vol. 1 is not the most entertaining record in the world, and to be honest the album/band sounds like they would be far more fun to see performed live than on record especially if they camped it up a bit. Until that time happens or the Dresden Dolls die, we're left with a bleak, dark, and dreary record that seems cold, distant, and uneasy. Haunted House vol. 1 is not the feel good hit of the summer that's for sure, but, if you love twisted, desolate, and gloomy songs that are slightly gothic than Strezo might be right up your alley.
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