Agent Ribbons - Your Love Is the Smallest Doll

Agent Ribbons
Your Love Is the Smallest Doll
Acuarela Records
Reviewed By: Jade Amey

I don’t remember exactly how I came across this band. I usually keep tabs on stuff like that, but I can’t think of how the Sacramento based band Agent Ribbons entered my realm for the life of me. I saw them in Chicago back in February at Quencher’s, but I liked them way before that. I guess it’s somewhat of a mystery.

Your Love is the Smallest Doll is the second 7” vinyl release for Agent Ribbons. The band consists of Natalie Gordon on guitar and lead vocals, Lauren Hess on drums/accordion and Naomi Cherie on violin and cello. The band’s first full length release, On Time Travel and Romance, is minimal with mostly only guitar and drums that is much in the style of the White Stripes. Your Love Is the Smallest Doll kind of steps away from the minimalist style into a more instrumentally focused release.

The 7” starts with 'the Artist', that has a haunting and eerie, psychedelic instrumentation and will leave you wondering what material the artist uses as the instrumentation intensifies at the end. This leads right into 'Bird in the Mirror', which is a track much different from the foremost. It’s a lot lighter and wispier, and it almost has a Sgt. Pepper’s-esque vibe that stems from the violins and the beautiful singing of all the ladies of the band. 'Your Love Is the Smallest Doll' is the quirky, circus-esque title track. The song holds a steady beat of military style drumming while being accompanied with an accordion that will give you the sense of 1920s or 1930s tune that really picks up at the end with all the girls in the band, once again, singing all together and declaring that “Your love is the smallest doll/and that will never do/because my doll eats them all”. It’s like a mature Disney song; when Disney was good, that is. You know, Snow White and Alice in Wonderland - that Disney. Overall, I find myself listening to this release quite a bit. Natalie’s voice through out this whole set of songs is so perfect and powerful at times that her voice will make you drop whatever you’re doing and listen to what she has to say.

I definitely recommend you purchase this 7” vinyl when it is released in July.
Your Love Is the Smallest Doll blew me away when I first listened to it. Though it only consists of three songs, you’ll want to keep this one on your record player for a while before you switch it.

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