Relying on her voice and the acoustic guitar, there isn't much room for error. But with a beautiful voice and soft drips of guitar accompanying her voice, she pulls it off nicely. The music is very dream-oriented, sleepy and calm, giving you something calm and mellow you can pop in when you just want to lay there and let something surround you and help ease your body. But she also has not forgotten her past, jumping into goth-rock numbers like "My Classic Ego." All goth-rock, she suddenly slips you out of that deep sleep and crosses your lovely thoughts with nightmares.

Although she doesn't do the goth-rock thing that bad, it sounds really out of place on her album, and just seems to grab at straws. Maybe on a gothic album she could fit in a few soft numbers, but slipping something like this on a predominately light platform just doesn't work. Keeping it up on "Speed," she seems to want to just rock out and pass on some of her aggression, something she can't do with the quieter stuff. But once again, it just doesn't work.

When she is on her acoustic guitar (light percussion is ok), she can pull off a number that is soft enough to relax you, and dreamy enough to keep you cozy. However, when she mixes this style with her other musical identities, she starts to lose everything she was trying to shape. I'll give this album a C.

Girlschool: The Very Best Of Girlschool

Gitane DeMone: Life in Death '85-'89

[Issue Eleven // August 1998]