Quite literally, Christy & Emily is a collaboration between Christy and Emily. Christy Edwards is a native Californian weaned on hard rock and a veteran of New York indie acts Lil' Fighters, the Totallys, and Brute Force. Emily Manzo graduated from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, has worked with numerous composers and artists, and teaches piano. Like the Wonder Twins or a Reeses peanut butter cup, theirs is an interesting partnership for the strikingly different abilities and musical flavors these two multi-instrumentalists bring to the studio and stage. Gueen's Head, the product of their work, isn't just "rock" versus "classical," but interpretive versus creative, mood versus hook, song versus sound.
The album sounds like indie pared down to its DIY basics: eight patiently paced songs creating a rainy-day minimalism. On opener "Ocean", Emily's keys swirl against Christy's guitar until the two intertwine so closely they sound inseparable. The music swells and fades gently, as if mimicking the motion of its title, until it morphs into a new song altogether. It's a neat trick, but the lyrics detract from the effect. No matter how many times they sing "Whoa the ocean" in the first half, it never becomes much of a hook, and the theme of the second half-- "I'd rather steal/ I'd rather steal/ Than go back to you/ Go back to you"-- never comes across as the monumental cry of defiance it's meant to be.
That problem extends to the seven tracks that follow: The music is usually interesting, the lyrics rarely so, as if the songs need the justification of words to exist. Often the lyrics veer toward cliché, as on "Signs": "I am waiting for a sign/ I will know when I see it." Still, the banality of these lines makes them easy to ignore or tune out, especially when Christy and Emily's voices blend beautifully. Christy typically takes lead, but Emily haunts the background, echoing and reinforcing her partner's declarations. On "Noah", the voices become indistinguishable from the atmospheric drone of guitar and synths, but the effect is purely aural, not lyrical.
Christy & Emily is largely a musical project, an outlet for the duo's sound ideas rather than their songwriting, so the best songs on Gueen's Head are those that emphasize their musical resourcefulness. "Island Song", the album's most surprising departure, drifts along on a scratchy samba beat that sounds like someone's mental postcard of a long-ago getaway. On closer "Birds", Emily's piano mimics the flight of birds, ascending and descending suddenly, making the keyboard swoop across Christy's vocals and earthy guitar. It's the fullest-sounding track on Gueen's Head, with a sublminal bassline and a very shallow depth-of-field that makes the instruments sound like they're constantly going in and out of focus. It's a strong end to a musical novella that never quite fulfills the promise of this intriguing pairing.
