Search - Ruby on the Vine :: This World of Days

"Myrna Marcarian rules the humanist motherboard of Ruby on the Vine, named after an Omar Khayyam elegy but also suggestive of the darkly faceted sheen of Marcarian's vocals. Though she plays keyboards less often than she plays her new signature instrument, acoustic guitar, she sometimes attacks the latter with a hard edge recalling Pfeifer's strum und drang. Ruby on the Vine's intriguing folkpop songs, most written by Marcarian, some with electric guitarist Geoff Feinberg, project a worldview as desire-driven as Human Switchboard's, yet with more accommodation at the end of the stark hallway: Love exists, fidelity too, but you have to work at them?thus, the erotic fiats of "You Belong to Me" and "Don't Be So Sure." The album rolls from homespun ballads like "Gather Round Your Wishing Wall" to the startling (in this context) garage rock of "Little Demon" and "Why You Wanna Make Me Mad," the latter two with riffs that tunnel right through the hangar wall. We already knew she could walk alone, and now she's sounding real sharp again. So maybe next time out, Ms. Marcarian will lyrically address the existential conundrum that continues to bedevil the creative class: Should I have gone to law school?!? " Richard Riegel, Village Voice