Jewish World Review
by Paul Weider
April 6, 2005
Golem: Homesick Songs
Klezmer music, garage-rock attitude. Golem is six people who have no business being this talented this young. Here, they present a dozen songs mostly named for places in the Old Country: Belz, Zlatopol, Odessa... which they long for with a twisted nostalgia. The characters in the tunes prefer the deep passions, as bitter as they were sweet, of the homeland's shtetls and fields to the unending drudgery of the "Goldena Medina's" slums and sweatshops. In one track, the sweet-faced "Greener Cousin" loses her bloom, damning her new land and its false promises. At least Golem enjoys wallowing in all the delicious angst.
