Mary And The Black Lamb – “Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing” [EP]

A common trend from the 90s was for artists to release acoustic albums under the name Unplugged. Some acts that created acoustic releases of their work were Bryan Adams, Eric Clapton, Nirvana and Neil Young, among many others. Mary And The Black Lamb has joined these artists by recording their own unplugged EP Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing.

Being an unplugged album means there had to be an original non-acoustic version of these songs. The original songs are from Mary And The Black Lamb’s full length As The City Sleeps. Four tracks were covered out of their ten songs. The first four of the five tracks on the new CD revolve around Nixon Citz’ acoustic guitar playing which alternates between picking and power chords. I especially like his use of harmonics on “Emily.” Lindz Riot’s singing is also featured on these songs. She uses a mellower voice than usual on this recording giving a melodic feel to this release. Backing the guitar are bass and piano, and do I detect a cello in the song “Silence”? The fifth track is another version of the song “Emily”. It is unique in that instead of being based on the acoustic it is a piano version.

The CD design was created by Denise (Carabott) Wilkins of Lifeart Designs. She used the concept of As The City Sleeps artwork but grey scaled it. She also reversed the placement of the band and album names. The album is all about inversions and the artwork depicts this.

Mary And The Black Lamb takes us back to the 90s, for a walk down memory lane, with Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing. Only 100 copies of this release were made so be sure to see this band live A.S.A.P. to grab the CD. My copy is the 26th of 100 and it was from the pre-release pile. They are going fast so hurry, hurry, hurry!

Track Listing:

01. Emily
02. Silence
03. Stay Away
04. Even Stranger
05. Emily (piano)

Run Time: 17:58
Release Date: 02.26.2010

Check out the song: “Silence”