{"id":780,"date":"2010-04-07T10:54:32","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T16:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=780"},"modified":"2010-04-07T10:54:32","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T16:54:32","slug":"review-picastro-become-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2010\/04\/07\/review-picastro-become-secret\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Picastro &#8211; Become Secret"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-781\" title=\"picastro\" src=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/picastro.jpg\" alt=\"picastro\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/>Recording yet another consistent and steady release in <em>Become Secret<\/em>, Picastro continues in the explorations of all things dark, brooding and moody.\u00a0 The album sees the band in their familiar setup with songs based primarily around soft, whispering vocals accompanied by cello, acoustic guitar, drums and the occasional piano. And while frontwoman and principal songwriter Liz Hysen does attempt to add some new things to the record\u2014including more guest appearances (by the likes of Tony Dekker, and John McIntyre) and interesting references to Cormac McCarthy and the Bible\u2014the record comes across as too safe, failing to take the band as a whole into new and interesting directions.\u00a0 Considering Picastro has made a name for themselves by pushing the listener into difficult and unsettling situations, it\u2019s interesting to watch them stay in their comfort zone, producing a record that sounds much like their previous records, such as <em>Red Your Blues<\/em> and <em>Whore Luck<\/em>. That said, I would still recommend the record, as it comes from one of Canada\u2019s more underrated acts.\u00a0 Hysen\u2019s songwriting is exceptionally strong, holding in healthy tension moments of love with despair and crushing dread.\u00a0 It\u2019s just that she\u2019s done this before, and I was hoping from something new from a band that has shown time and time again that it is not afraid to take risks.\u00a0 (Monotreme, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.monotremerecords.com\">www.monotremerecords.com<\/a>) <strong>Jeff Friesen<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recording yet another consistent and steady release in Become Secret, Picastro continues in the explorations of all things dark, brooding and moody.\u00a0 The album sees the band in their familiar setup with songs based primarily around soft, whispering vocals accompanied by cello, acoustic guitar, drums and the occasional piano. And while frontwoman and principal songwriter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}