I was sceptical when I first heard that barDe was doing the Misfits' version of Dig Up Her Bones. What do you do to reinvent a punk goth anthem without losing its viscerality? So I clicked the play button, and in a few seconds I realized.
This Irish-American artist with the Manchester background has accomplished something impressive- she has stripped the aggression down to the naked grief that was always present, lurking under the horror-punk veneer. What comes out is spectral, painfully exposed, and even more disturbing than the initial thrash of the original.
Where Glenn Danzig struck, barDe moves hauntingly restrained. Her breathy vocals have this relaxing effect, which should not be combined with such dark material, but that contrast brings the real tension. You are both reassured and de-stressed. The instrumentation was recorded with Chris Pepper at Saltwell Studios and has a breathing quality to it, with each element being given room to play without sticking out like a sore thumb in the fragile emotional structure of the song. It is as though you were viewing the stages of grief at slow motion and you just cannot help but stare.
What really touches me is the unblushing candor of barDe in regard to obsession. She knows that devotion and madness are often addressed to the same thing, that we can lose our memories and become ourselves when we deny ourselves to give up what is past. Instead of decontaminating these dark realities, she takes them on board with gothic dramatic flair, celebrating her artistic heritage as well as the Misfits gothic heritage of the macabre.
The music leaves room to think instead of making us respond instantly, and it is up to us to respond in that awkward location where love exists despite our logical explanations. BarDe, in aid of Cruse Bereavement Support, provides not only artistic expression, but also a kind of caring- we must admit we need to honour what we have lost, but we must also perhaps come to a time when we need to put down the spud.
