Album Review: “Party on, Papillon!”

Having hugely enjoyed Anna Secret Poet’s earlier album “Tits of Steel” (as hilarious as it sounds, and a great antidote to a depressing workplace where listening to offbeat deadpan punk-poetry ought to be mandatory for mental health), I was eager to hear her latest offering, and was thoroughly entertained, amused, and really very impressed (especially as, by her own admission, recording sessions typically took place in her bedroom). This is not to to categorise it as a mere collection of comic songs – if anything, it is less overtly comical than its predecessor; darker and edgier – although fans will be pleased to know it retains the sharp, laconic wit of her earlier offerings.

Musically, the emphasis is towards a harder, more rock-oriented sound, with some particularly stunning guitar work which it is very hard to believe was mastered in a home studio (although that may account for my one criticism: as with the previous album, the lyrics can occasionally be overwhelmed by music or distortion on the heavier tracks). Anna’s singing is also very impressive, and in spite of her self-deprecation in “Limited Appeal” – a rock and roll pastiche in which she talks of having a “manly voice” – she demonstrates a remarkable vocal range on this album (especially in “The Cat That Got the Dream” – another of the album’s strong rock offerings).

Acoustic offerings are fewer on this album, although the intro and outro both take that form, and have the playful, whimsical humour that characterised much of “Tits of Steel.” Humour on the rest of this album tends to the dark side, especially with “Aunty Semitic and Uncle Adolf” (which one can’t help but feel is written very much for our current times of frightening but absurd resurgent far-right movements) and “Still Ragin’ After All These Years,” which deals with the poet’s existential crises in an ironically bouncy, happy-go-lucky arrangement that owes more than a bit to Paul McCartney (as she hilariously acknowledges, but to say more would be a spoiler). Also on the softer side of arrangements is “Anna vs The Festival” which delightfully recounts the pleasures and pains of being an itinerant performance poet and drag artist at a muddy festival.

Powerfully performed and wittily composed, testimony to its creator’s dual talent as poet and musician, “Party on, Papillon!” is a very worthy follow-up to its predecessor, and worth many listenings.