Beth Jeans Houghton & the Hooves of Destiny
Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose
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Review By Brian Baker

 
The impossibly young and talented Beth Jeans Houghton and her band, the Hooves of Destiny, are like indie pop food processors, chopping up bits of way back when and right bloody now into easily digestible and hugely flavorful bites without pureeing them into an unpalatable mush. Houghton released a single and an EP and became a critics darling in her native UK, securing feverish invitations to festivals all over the continent before sequestering herself in Los Angeles to record her quirky and magnificent full length debut, Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose.

It’s not difficult to draw a line between Florence + the Machine (“Sweet Tooth Bird”), Kate Bush (“Veins,” “The Barely Skinny Tree”), Sparks (“Carousel”), Annie Lennox (“Dodecahedron”) and Bow Wow Wow (“Atlas”) on Yours Truly as Houghton, the Hooves and producer Ben Hiller perfectly crosspollinate orchestral swells, tribal drums, operatic cathedral choir vocals and psychedelically-tinged pop that veer madly between expansive grandeur and whispered intimacy, often within the same song. On “Nightswimmer,” Houghton swoops and warbles over a clattering harpsichord, blippy synths and Eno-modified guitar while “Lilliput” gallops along like gypsy pop opera with a ’60s complex and “Franklin Benedict” mixes chamber pop and glam rock to indescribable effect. With Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose, Beth Jeans Houghton & the Hooves of Destiny may just divert attention away from the Lady Gaga vs. Madonna discussion by way of real musical diversity and originality.