AMG Review of Big Good Angel

Steve Huey
All Music Guide

Alternating Fiedler/Callahan songs all through its six tracks, the Big Good Angel EP was the last release by the original Moonshake lineup. Perhaps part of the reason is that Margaret Fiedler's dark sensuality really asserts itself and wrests control of the proceedings. Where her songs provided a subtler, more hypnotic (though no less challenging) respite from Dave Callahan's angry rants on Eva Luna, here they take center stage in spite of the fact that Callahan's contributions are no slouches either -- especially the perversely tragic "Séance." Fiedler's songs reach such a complex balance between sensual longing and cynical manipulation, obsessive desire and cold detachment, disturbing imagery and devilish humor, that they can't help but dominate this smaller space. In hindsight, it's not surprising that Moonshake split in half following this release, since in a sense they already had.