Our Lady of Radium Radiates Magic and Mystery

Charming Disaster / photo by Shervin Lainez/courtesy of the artists

Goth-folk musical duo Charming Disaster is set to release their fourth album Our Lady of Radium  in March of this year and Brooklyn Roads was offered the opportunity to listen to the album prior to its release.

The Brooklyn-based band first formed in 2012 by members Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris. The inspiration for their music stems from the works of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, which automatically gives listeners a clear picture of the themes of their tracks. What is unique about the album is that not only is it six years in the making, but all songs strung together tell one continuous story, a goal the duo was intent on giving listeners.

Album Cover Artwork

As cited on their website, the duo claims “they write songs that tell stories about death, crime, myth, magic, folklore, science, and the occult.”
Their spooky influences hold true in the title track of the album, Our Lady of Radium,  as harmonies in minor keys and minimal instrumentals create a slithering sound that listeners would find too pleasing to hit pause.

Charming Disaster In Performance/ photo by Mark Shelby Perry/ courtesy of the artist

Other tracks that stand out on the album are “Power of the Sun” and “Darkened Room.” In “Power of the Sun”, a roller coaster of music and sound effects give way to perfect representation of the many genres the duo associates themselves with.What starts out as a seemingly lilting track, then slowly picks up to a ragged punk-rock sound. As electric guitars join into the composition, the peak of those sounds are lowered back down to acoustic sounding lilts once again. This juxtaposition of sounds carries through the entirety of the track, only to end opposite the way it started, with a punk and goth-rock impression. Deviating to a more folk-based tempo is “Darkened Room”, a track so based in acoustic guitar and banjo-esque, that it almost makes you want to get up and dance along.

A Charming Disaster Fashion Statement /photo by Adrian Buckmaster/courtesy of the artists

Something really captivating to the eye is the ban’s bold choice of artwork, both in their album cover and lyric book. By using the same color scheme of black and beige with hints of green and yellow peeking throughout, the magic continues as these colors strung together emit magic and mystery. Along with their name, is a fitting image of the lyric book being a disaster, as pages are made to look as though scrap paper with scribbled notes is thrown together, and doodles of various shapes and sizes fill up entire spaces.

Most song lyrics within the book also highlight certain phrases in green as the other texts stand in black fonts. Making these lyrics pop creates a kind of importance and urgency as the lyrics scream for attention. While their music is a sophisticated art form in itself, just flipping through the accompanied lyric book shows an abstract piece of art, where anything can be made of what you see. As they say, the beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

Charming Disaster does an excellent job of keeping magic and mystery in all of their music, leaving listeners to crave more of the mystifying vocals, lyric structure, and overall sound at the end of each track.

The release of the album on March 4 will be available on all platforms, accompanied by an album release party on March 10 at Caveat in Manhattan.