GOLEM: HOMESICK SONGS
Aeronaut Records

If you've lamented the dearth of klezmer rock bands, Golem is out to win your heart. Pushing the tempo - not to mention the envelope - the New York-based band puts a unique spin on contemporary Jewish music. "I tried to imagine how Tom Waits would record a klezmer album," says band founder Annette Ezelkiel. Nowhere is this wild Waitsian sensibility more apparent than on the driving "Bialystok." Golem, named after the legendary Jewish Frankenstein of Prague, has named their songs after old-world places, the longed-after locales of the unsettled diaspora. Golem's reinterpretation of the classic "Rumenye" is a crazy blend of "Metamorphosis," the Violent Femmes, and homesickness. Not all of the songs are so wild; the plaintive tombone of "Belz" wouldn't shock your alte bobe. But Golem is a new kind of Jewish band, combining a respect for tradition with a proclivity toward the sensual and melodramatic. A highly enjoyable album from a band to watch.

©2004 Scott Allan Stevens, Earball Media