CD Review: D. Rider, Mother of Curses

D. Rider

Mother of Curses

(Tizona)

D. Rider‘s Mother of Curses is at once artful, playful and sinister — a cacking 1930s cartoon villain sentenced to hang because of what he did to the heroine just after he tied her to the train tracks. Amplifying this notion, the cover features a piece of embroidery that’s either been ravaged or left unfinished: a smiling child in a summer hat, naked from the waist down, her middle absent. It’s a little bit cute but mostly creepy — disturbing, even, if you think about it too long. And so is the sharp, sexy, unhinged rock music on this Chicago project’s debut.