Baby Silvertooth

AMG Review of Baby Silvertooth

Rick Anderson
All Music Guide

This interesting Japanese import came hard on the heels of Belly's debut album and occupies a strange sort of commercial space between a standard CD maxi-single and a stopgap EP. Consisting of two album tracks from Star, one of them in remixed form, and seven additional B-sides and previously unreleased selections (four of them released in the U.S. as the Feed the Tree EP), it amounts to the kind of exotic grab bag that fans and completists will lust after. The originals are all typical Tanya Donnelly fare -- harsh yet tuneful pop songs with a dark underbelly and undeniable hooks. The covers are also typical in their similarly dark-hued whimsy, and include "Trust in Me" (from the soundtrack to the Disney adaptation of The Jungle Book), a surprisingly effective arrangement of "It's Not Unusual," and an even more surprisingly effective rendition of the Graham Parsons classic "Hot Burrito #1." This EP doesn't pack the same wallop as either of Belly's full-length albums, but it's worthwhile.