Album Review: Another World [EP] by Antony and the Johnsons

This EP, a teaser of what to expect from the full-length album scheduled for January, sees the vocalist reining in some of his more histrionic tendencies while expanding his palette of influences and sounds. Some fans are going to miss the melodramatic over-the-top crescendos of his earlier material, but if they have the patience they'll realize that this restraint serves him well, putting the emphasis on the songs rather than his otherworldly warble and heart-wrenching wailing. The biggest surprise is the upbeat blues stomp of Shake That Devil, a track that's already polarizing reviewers and fans as either the highlight or misstep of Another World.

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To the ranks of eco warriors now add the looming figure of Antony Hegarty, last heard on I Am a Bird Now, OMM's album of the year in 2005, whose full sequel follows next year. That is, if the polar ice caps haven't melted by then and done for us all. If we are going to go, the magnificently mournful title track of this EP may as well be the soundtrack.

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Like the legendary butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno, who graces this EP’s cover, Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons has a thing for theatricality. He kicks off the Another World EP with its title track, a sparse call to leave this world for another. Whether he means leaving the planet Earth, moving onto the afterlife or merely leaving the New York grotesquerie he’s constructed around himself is entirely up to the listener to decide.

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The 2005 Mercury Award-winning I Am a Bird Now launched avant-garde/cabaret/chamber pop king/queen Antony into the near mainstream with its lush and heavily orchestrated outsider torch songs. Three years later, fresh from projects with Björk, Todd Haynes, and Charles Atlas, Antony and the Johnsons return with Another World, a five-song teaser EP for the group's forthcoming Crying Light album. As usual, Antony's gorgeous, mournful voice is the centerpiece, especially on the EP's namesake, a sparse, piano-led ballad that finds the singer spilling a list of his "favorite things" that he'll regret not being able to take with him into the next life.

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