On her quiet, spare follow-up disc, When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day, Mirel Wagner offers up a slowly strummed fright-ballad.
By Mirel Wagner, streaming at youtube.com
The song is 1234, but unlike Feist's chirpy counting tune of the same name, the creepy new one from the gloom-blues folkie Mirel Wagner will not be adapted for Sesame Street spots or iPod ads.
On her dimly lit self-titled debut album from 2011, the Ethiopian-born, Finland-raised songstress Wagner had addressed necrophilia impassively, the till-death-do-us-part clause being insignificant to her.
Now, on her quiet, spare follow-up disc, When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day, she offers up a slowly strummed fright-ballad.
"What's underneath the floor," asks Wagner, who undoubtedly knows the answer. Possibly it's the child from the uncommon relationship of the first album. One, two, three, four – think twice before opening that cellar door.
Brad Wheeler