10 Neurotics (Deluxe)

Given where Black Tape for a Blue Girl started almost a quarter of a century back with Sam Rosenthal's exploration of calm, extended electronics twinned with darkly textured, melodramatic performances that ended up being tagged as goth for lack of a better term, it's striking to sense how his muse and interests have been reflected over the years with the release of each new album. Halo Star had already showcased his increasing interest with neo-cabaret music and 10 Neurotics brings it flowering in the full, even as there's enough of the calm contemplation lurking in the arrangements and familiar from albums like Ashes in the Brittle Air. But right from the start, with the alternate-world Weimar-bar singalong of "Sailor Boy," performed by Laurie Reade and Athan Maroulis, Rosenthal's two main vocal muses this time around, it's clear that Rosenthal's work with performers like Nicki Jaine in the Revue Noir collaboration continues to bear further fruit. Jaine herself appears at various points throughout the album, her own vocal highlight being the amazing kiss-off "Rotten Zurich Café," while Rosenthal and multi-instrumentalist Brian Viglione handle the majority of the music. For all of the more overt role-playing in the lyrics in place of straight-up confessionals as in the past — a good example of the newer approach being seen in "Inch Worm," with lyrics derived from a blog Rosenthal read on the concerns of self-image — there's still enough of it to draw a line back to the past. Combined with the calmer music on songs like "Caught by a Stranger," featuring Projekt regulars Michael Laird of Unto Ashes and Steve Roach, and even more notably "I Strike You Down," sung by the ever-elegant Elysabeth Grant, 10 Neurotics is in the end as much of a career summation as a marking point for Rosenthal.