It's 1221

So I get a little excited when someone I wrote about is featured in a major media source… Granted, it seems like it wasn’t the most polite audience for Crain and the Midnight Shivers, but that didn’t prevent New York Times writer Jon Caramanica from showering Crain & Co. with approval. Here’s the excerpt:

“When focused, Ms. Crain — with turquoise tights screaming out from between a beige print dress and red cowboy boots — was captivating. Her pleading, slightly distant intonation recalled early-1990s Britpop, an accent atop a voice that traverses the space between Gillian Welch and Regina Spektor. And when Ms. Crain pushes herself, that voice arcs and dips and punches like Siouxsie Sioux’s.

“She could have easily overwhelmed a less capable backing band, but the Midnight Shivers — the bass player and harmony vocalist Andrew Tanz, the guitarist Stephen Sebastian and the drummer and occasional harmonica player Jacob Edwards — ably played with texture.

“On ‘Rising Sun,’ Mr. Sebastian’s guitar rubbed up against Ms. Crain’s clear vocals like sandpaper, and the interplay of Mr. Tanz’s harmonies and Mr. Edwards’s stabbing snares gave ‘Get the Fever Out’ the impression of speeding up, then slowing down, over and over, as Ms. Crain wisely kept it stoic: ‘Can we see how we need to bury you, bury you?’”

Crain on MySpace, new album, Songs in the Night, will be out April 28th.

NYT Photo