Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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EMA

  • Past Life Martyred Saints [Souterrain Transmissions, 2011] B+

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Past Life Martyred Saints [Souterrain Transmissions, 2011]
Erika Anderson claims "Zen nihilism" is what you get growing up on South Dakota's bleak prairie under South Dakota's endless sky, which sounds reasonable until you start counting how many South Dakotans feel this way: approximately one. So insofar as she pretends her willful pose is the holy truth, she's annoying. What saves that pose is the willful power of a presentation less Courtney Love or Chan Marshall than PJ Harvey--"nothin and nothin and nothin and nothin" as an emotional reality that's her truth whether she's maxing out on free love or playing Russian roulette with a butterfly knife. B+