In the midst of recording
Impossible Shapes' twilight-pop extravaganza
We Like It Wild, frontman
Chris Barth was creating a nocturnal emission of his own with
Born a Black Diamond. After hours, in abandoned hallways, bedrooms, and basements, the singer/songwriter and guitar player laid down tracks on an abused four-track under the assumed moniker
Normanoak. He keeps the music simple, opting for acoustic guitar-driven folk steeped in '60s psychedelia with angular indie rock tendencies. Lyrically,
Barth lives in a world ripe with earthy mysticism, channeling everyone from
Syd Barrett to Skip Spence with a healthy dose of labelmate Daniel Smith's skewed wisdom -- "Our Place in the Sky" would have fit snugly on any Danielson Famile record. The pastoral nature of each track is beset by the meandering -- somewhat choppy -- nature of the melodies, and while he obviously has a deep reverence for the natural world around him, there's a feverish pitch, just out of reach, that makes even the softest material feel jagged and dangerous. When he does rock out, like on the
Love-style rave-up "Baby Trees,"
Normanoak sounds like a band -- albeit a poorly recorded one -- and
Born a Black Diamond begins to show some depth. However, the act of taking an atonal chord structure, finding a melody to put over it, and filling that melody with vague, stream-of-consciousness lyrics can grow tiresome after half a record, and unless the listener connects somewhere along the way, the results are empty at best, despite the artist's amiable intentions. ~ James Christopher Monger