Has anyone heard this odd little album?!!
Back in the late 80’s when I was admittedly…a goth…gag! I became aware Of an underground artist named Damien Youth. I had a few songs on a tape but could never find info on this artist. After a fews years had passed & took off the face paint & gave all of my death rock records to me little sister I still hung on to my Damien Youth tape. By the mid 90’s I finally found info on Damien. I ordered a cd by a band called FEATHER BOX. Though it did sound like Damien at times I didn’t really think much of the cd. A few years ago I pulled out the tape again & was compelled to research this artist again. After reading what Unterberger’s All Music Guide praise of Damien I took the plunge again& ordered this GREAT cd called SUNFIELD!! I can honestly say I probably listen to this album 3 or 4 times a week& I have had it over a year!
The album starts off sounding a bit Daevid Allen with it’s pop melody, weird feel & alien paranoia, the first song changes into a warm invitation to sit and listen as Damien tells us of his childhood experiences with being abducted, this part flows into a fast Syd Barrett style rant about stage fright & drugs (I think?) Then an odd song with quaint little space noises & a girl voice talking about the origins of humans. There are like 20 songs on this cd, most of them really short but the whole album will be a classic to me for as long as I listen to music. Stand out tracks for me were DECORATE: An XXX rated folk song, charming & disturbing. It comes off like some lost Nick Drake home demo. STATUE MARY ROSE may be another lost DRAKE cut, but in a more classic British style. THE DANDELION GIRL & SUSIE CINAMMON are also beautiful & twisted around the edges. “My fucked up little Dandelion Girl” !! I love the way Damien delivers that line, the song seems so innocent but the lyrics!!! The songs VALEK MUTATIONS & PLEASE DON’T FALL IN LOVE gives me the impression that Damien must have heard of Cope! There is also a bit of Hitchcock/Barrett on this album. MAGIC FOREST sounds like acoustic prog!
THROUGH THE EYES OF MOLLY makes me cry, It’s a sad tale of an old woman who escapes a nursing home and returns to the fields she played in as a child, she dies clutching a photo of her child self. The “Human conscious” songs like this one on the album are so real that you actually start to believe that the “Alien Contact” songs are real as well! Who knows?