Elvis Perkins

Elvis Perkins chronicles the life of a brooding troubadour on his reflective full-length debut, Ash Wednesday. Having lost his parents, actor Anthony Perkins and photographer Berenthia "Berry" Berenson, to tragedy, Perkins combines lamenting lyrics with hopeful harmonies to convey a poetic sequence to his life. "While You Were Sleeping" and "The Night and the Liquor" highlight the singer's somber tenor and thoughtful melodies.

Elvis perkins has a legitimate claim to the melancholy-singer-songwriter thing: His father,
the actor Anthony Perkins, died of AIDS when Elvis was seventeen, and his mother was
killed on one of the planes on September 11th, 2001. Perkins alludes to his past obliquely,
but it's hard to avoid -- for one, the album title appears to refer to the day after 9/11. "While
You Were Sleeping" has a trancelike feel and chilling lyrics ("I made a death suit... More >