Album Review: Heartache City by CocoRosie

Whilst they have undoubtedly produced many a moment of weird beauty over the last decade or so, CocoRosie are rarely a cosy listening experience. Sisters Bianca and Sierra Casady have a history of tapping into the uncomfortable, taboo and offbeat, both musically and lyrically. Sixth album Heartache City continues the CR lineage of both beauty and discomfort.

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Take me down to the Heartache City, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Take me home… Actually, don’t. That’s not to say that CocoRosie’s Heartache City is an album to avoid; the City that is figuratively imagined via the record’s title is. And while this place—or more accurately, places—aren’t in any sense literal, there is a construction of the kind of rusty southern location where malicious intent has been common within its population’s history.

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After years of more elaborate projects, CocoRosie's Sierra and Bianca Casady return to their roots on Heartache City. Avoiding the electronics that dominated their later albums, the duo opted for the acoustic and toy instruments that made La Maison de Mon Rêve a one-of-a-kind debut. Songs such as "Forget Me Not" build on that album's deceptively simple charms, using little more than a xylophone and a drum machine to cast a spell.

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CocoRosie have always seemed like outsiders. Any attempt to pigeonhole the type of music they create is a bit like trying to hammer a very square peg into a very round hole. The fact that they got tagged as part of the ‘freak folk’ scene back in the mid 2000s is largely down to their debut La Maison de Mon Rêve and it’s equally introspective follow up Noah’s Ark, both of which embraced Bianca and Sierra Casady’s quirky vision of reimagined folk tales with skeletal guitar arrangement, and the odd children’s toy thrown in for good measure.

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