2006's Bring Me The Workhorse, Shara Worden's debut
under the name My Brightest Diamond, felt like a night in a luxurious tree
fort. Delicately arranged strings, vibraphones, and warm guitars coated it in
flirtation and wonder, even in trivial moments. The new A Thousand Shark's
Teeth
begins as a bleaker, creepier expansion of Worden's symphonic rock, and much as
there is to get lost in, there's less to remember. After kicking off with the
catchy storm of "Inside A Boy," Worden starts to flail at scattered notions and
tedious trinkets. Her voice jumps through octaves, whispers, baby-coos, trills,
and shrills, distracting from what may or may not be solid ideas at the heart
of "The Ice And The Storm," "Black & Costaud," "To Pluto's Moon," and "If I
Were Queen." Her operatic training doesn't always flatter her. If she's going
to keep using the falsetto that cracks into "Queen" and the itchy, rustling
"Apples," she should give people blocks of rubber to bite down on. Worden seems
to achieve what she's going for on "From The Top Of The World," balancing
space, ambient hisses, darkness, mystery, and melody with the patience that
made Workhorse
catch on. Too often, Teeth sacrifices that for experiments that translate
into beautiful arrangements, but turn songs as a whole into frustrating, incomplete
muddles.