HECATE'S ANGELS
Hidden Persuader
Producer: Jim Hill & Pietra Wexstun

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Under the guidance of lead vocalist, Pietra Wexstun (Drywall, The Stan Ridgway Quintet), HIDDEN PERSUADER is A bold mix of ambient pieces and pop music kissed by chaos.

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"As heard from anyone from Black Sabbath to the Melvins, generic white-boy anger has pretty much fueled the darker side of rock. Hecate's Angels provides a more feminine slant on the damned with Hidden Persuader (Birdcage), where gospel music is spun around the pretty fingers of Pietra Wexstun. While officially a band entailing some of L.A.'s most interesting musicians, Hecate's Angels is mainly a vehicle for Wexstun to flesh out her notoriously spooky keyboard fixation, which encompasses everything from organ to madly-outdated synthesizers. Along the way, her descending staircase repeatedly relies on good intentions and womanly wiles. "Where there's a document shred/Make sure it's one that I've read/Or I'll be back with the tape and the glue," she warns in "Eve's Angle," pretty much creating the Barbara Stanwyck solo album we've all been anxiously awaiting.

Even the jauntier tunes pay tribute to downing souls, as when the chirpy existentialist narrator of "Fence" takes a stand against taking sides. The lost urban experience is further captured with the instrumental "Purdah Party," when the sound of taking a wrong turn in limbo is followed by the eastern-tinged madness of "Hall of Mirrors." The quiet horror show of "Rosemary's Baby" is chilling enough in the traditional realm of dark rumblings, while "Seduction of the Minotaur" has band member Stan Ridgway (who also serves with Wexstun in the multimedia Drywall project) brandishing a line harmonica against Wexstun's massively creepy organ lines. None of this, naturally, could go up against Slayer in the service of invoking Satan, but Hidden Persuader still makes a pretty compelling case for making a blind date with the Dark Lord."