Borderville - Metamorphosis

(Self released, 2011)

No-one asked them to but Oxford's chief cabaret band has gone and created a soundtrack to Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Naturally, Borderville's interpretation of the novella is more Freddie Mercury than Philip Glass. “Open the Door”, with its nods to new-wave, is fast-paced and fun, “Capitalypso” is dementedly bombastic, “Anchor” and “As It Is” are pretty and lilting, “The Human Way” is trance-like and in-between there are plenty of surprises, both pleasant and otherwise. The overall effect is knowingly incongruous to the subject matter but that doesn't mean that it always works, at times coming across like Monty Python does Kafka. This is no doubt an album that would benefit from the inevitable theatrics of the band's live show, an element which is palpably missing for the most part (album highlight “Uneasy Dreams” being a notable exception). So for a musical adaptation of a much-misunderstood novella, Metamorphosis is an ambitious and surprisingly accessible starting point to the much-misunderstood Borderville.

[Originally published in Oxford Music Scene magazine, issue 16]

http://www.oxfordmusicscene.co.uk/images/oms_issue16.pdf