Tim Daly and Pablo Ratliff met and fell in love at a Manhattan conservatory for musical theatre 1998. Now, after a five year artistic courtship, the progeny of this reportedly unholy union is an album that is at once beautiful and unassuming, goofy and yet undoubtedly earnest. If the underground music world isn’t swallowing hard in anticipation, they should be.
Testosterone Kills, sprung from the growing New York artists’ collective known as Antifolk, are the pioneers of what they have newly dubbed “electro-folk.” In contrast to their self-titled 2001 debut, Tim and Pablo emerge on War as the frontmen of a ragtag band of drum loops, digital basslines, techno breakbeats, and oh-so-cute synth handclaps, which give ultra-ironic hipness to an album that is otherwise a gathering of acoustic ballads.
This is not, however, to detract from their skills as songwriters. Their lyrics manage to be simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking, as in “Arizona”: “Jesus Christ! I mean, I’m only human/But not in your eyes, or so the Newsweek poll claimed.” The songs are often dripping with social awareness, with particular regard to queer politics, and the subject matter is occasionally grave, as when Tim launches into a heated articulation of his rage at gay-bashers in “I’m Gonna Tell Ya.”
But of course, lyrics cannot make an album, and they don’t. It is the rich, nuanced, splendid quality of Tim and Pablo’s voices that truly carries the album. The soaring harmonies on “Come Out, Come Out” are so big and bright and sad and gorgeous that the lyrics practically don’t matter.
This is a weird record, yes. The target audience is beyond indiscriminate, the genre is in a class all its own, and everything on the album seems to derive in some way from some other style. But the boys’ intense awareness of all of their unmarketable quirks allows them to poke fun at folk, techno, and diva pop archetypes while still somehow remaining incredibly sincere.
