Guthrie Galileo Casts a Spell on Reissued Album
Nov 13, 2024
(Winedark Sound, digital) Guthrie Galileo has always been a little bit witchy, and not just in his music. Now based in New York City, the former Burlingtonian singer-songwriter used to organize and host a shadowy community dinner/concert series from his Old North End apartment called the Nightshade Kitchen. Like a hipster Strega Nona, he enchanted his guests with fresh, rustic cuisine as eclectic tunesmiths made music in the corner. The series morphed into the Nightshade Festival, which, in late summer 2024, was transmuted to the Spirit of Vermont music festival in Williston, at which Galileo's Nightshade Kitchen was still in full effect. A food wizard in his own right, his deepest magic lies in his music. A milky blend of neo-R&B and electronica, Galileo's sound was singular in the Queen City. Throughout his Vermont years, he released several dazzling albums, including one featuring nothing but Usher covers. His latest release, The Angels Will Never Wear White Again (Hunter's Moon Edition), is a reissue of his 2023 album of the same name. It features two new remixes and an additional tune not found on the original. Appropriately unveiled in the midst of spooky season, Angels sustains Galileo's passionate pop while exploring new sonic realms inspired by classic horror composers such as Ennio Morricone and John Carpenter. Though the composers' creepy essence is infused throughout, it's most palpable in a few instrumental cuts that serve as the album's centerpiece. "Witch's Window," an eerie toy box of horrors, brims with ghostly, theremin-like synth. It leads to the panic-stricken, pulse-pounding "Nine Doors." Clearly indebted to Carpenter, the horror-techno blitz conjures a cornered scream queen fighting for "final girl" status. "Stridula" concludes the mini suite with an amorphous choral reverie. Angels' pop-oriented tracks are just as haunted and freaky. Spare and bony, opener "Sanguine" is a halting banger full of chasms. "Bonedance" is an acid-house trip to a dark realm of warped samples and jagged synths. Dark dance-floor fodder "Deaf Heaven" is a hellish romp, and the shape-shifting "Black Porcelain" oozes dread and suspense. It all leads to a brand-new cut, "The Lich King." Named for an immortal undead creature often referenced in role-playing games, the track serves as a deathly invocation: "All is cold now to the touch / Ash to ash and dust to dust," Galileo breathes over inching boom-bap beats and siren synth. Closing with jacked-up remixes of "Sanguine" and "Nine…