"You said I was dark for keeping the book of the dead / By the side of the bed / I wonder, do you still believe that now that the dread’s set in / Or did your better angels win? Did your better angels win?"
The blood curdling beauty and passion of "Perpetual Light of the Void" by New Orleans singer-songwriter / multi-instrumentalist Daphne Parker Powell, and from her 7th upcoming album "The Death of Cool", comes at you in a full on panoramic way. From the onset it feels like an orchestral folk ballad with swirling horns and Powell's moving piano fills (and frills) and her exquisitely emotional singing and storytelling that is literally full flesh and bloodied metaphors as if seems to shift to gothic rock places, until it explodes into amazing full art rock mode featuring a kick ass killer lead guitar break. It is like an amalgam of Maude Maggart, Fiona Apple, PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and Queen, this is a shape shifting surprise.
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
[The rituals and prayers we modern, western kids tend toward are almost always rooted in more arcane practices of faiths rarely survived in antiquity. But even in cultural pockets like New Orleans, where voodoo and hoodoo and general witchery have kept pace with time, you can see only glimpses of their origins.]
Kudos to the sheer poetry of these abstract, sometimes dark, lyrics and the equally artful, filmic Official Video whose imagery (including shrouded faces) that had my mind going to The Mars Volta's 2005 album cover for "Frances the Mute" and feeling the dour emotional patina of a Robert Eggers film.
LYRICS
You said I was dark for keeping the book of the dead
By the side of the bed
I wonder, do you still believe that now that the dread’s set in
Or did your better angels win? Did your better angels win?
And I love you like a tooth knocked out
I love you like the ache in the socket
I love you like the blood in my mouth
When I pick you up and put you in my pocket
I was the girl who always asked strangers to dance
Till I bent to your will and martyred my joy to your lack of romance
Tell me again how beautiful it was before you fell
A sinlessness lost to us, A sinlessness lost to us
And you never would have seen me through
To the other side, other side
Once again, Daphne Parker Powell's songwriting is open and vulnerable, naked in it's reveals. In a previous review I said that her "vocal character walks a tightrope between a full bodied confessional, a vibrato that within the context (of her storytelling) can feel like a painful tremble" but I will add that while the songs I have heard do feel like bloodletting, they also feel like a sort of communal embrace, like trauma bonding and that is always a good thing, a powerful thing.
-Robb Donker Curtius
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
[The rituals and prayers we modern, western kids tend toward are almost always rooted in more arcane practices of faiths rarely survived in antiquity. But even in cultural pockets like New Orleans, where voodoo and hoodoo and general witchery have kept pace with time, you can see only glimpses of their origins.]
Kudos to the sheer poetry of these abstract, sometimes dark, lyrics and the equally artful, filmic Official Video whose imagery (including shrouded faces) that had my mind going to The Mars Volta's 2005 album cover for "Frances the Mute" and feeling the dour emotional patina of a Robert Eggers film.
LYRICS
You said I was dark for keeping the book of the dead
By the side of the bed
I wonder, do you still believe that now that the dread’s set in
Or did your better angels win? Did your better angels win?
And I love you like a tooth knocked out
I love you like the ache in the socket
I love you like the blood in my mouth
When I pick you up and put you in my pocket
I was the girl who always asked strangers to dance
Till I bent to your will and martyred my joy to your lack of romance
Tell me again how beautiful it was before you fell
A sinlessness lost to us, A sinlessness lost to us
And you never would have seen me through
To the other side, other side
Once again, Daphne Parker Powell's songwriting is open and vulnerable, naked in it's reveals. In a previous review I said that her "vocal character walks a tightrope between a full bodied confessional, a vibrato that within the context (of her storytelling) can feel like a painful tremble" but I will add that while the songs I have heard do feel like bloodletting, they also feel like a sort of communal embrace, like trauma bonding and that is always a good thing, a powerful thing.
-Robb Donker Curtius
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
https://www.instagram.com/daphneparkerpowell/
https://www.facebook.com/DameCalico/
https://linktr.ee/daphneparkerpowell
From Daphne Parker Powell's album 'The Death of Cool', coming May 22, 2026.
Touring and creating from her home base in New Orleans, Daphne Parker Powell brings fierce will, humor, and vulnerability to every stage and recording. The Death of Cool stands as her boldest statement yet—a powerful, deeply human album offering catharsis, warmth, and hope in uncertain times.
Drums & Tambo/Shaker - Jimbo Mathus
Upright Bass - John Kveen
Acoustic Guitar & Vocals - Daphne Parker Powell
Grand Piano - Banjo Bergfeld
Clarinet - Caroline Brunious
Tenor Sax - Brent Rose
Alto Sax - Alejandro 'Alex' Canales
Trombone - Charlie Halloran
Hand Drum - Kirk Bowie Russell
Electric Guitar - Kirk Bowie Russell
BGV - Zoe Di Priester, Anna Laura Quinn
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.instagram.com/daphneparkerpowell/
https://www.facebook.com/DameCalico/
https://linktr.ee/daphneparkerpowell
From Daphne Parker Powell's album 'The Death of Cool', coming May 22, 2026.
Across ten tracks, The Death of Cool explores the unraveling of cultural mythologies—questioning rebellion, cynicism, and the illusion of “cool,” while inviting listeners back to sincerity, curiosity, and connection. It’s an album that critiques while celebrating, pulsing with danceable, torch-lit Southern gothic spirit.
Touring and creating from her home base in New Orleans, Daphne Parker Powell brings fierce will, humor, and vulnerability to every stage and recording. The Death of Cool stands as her boldest statement yet—a powerful, deeply human album offering catharsis, warmth, and hope in uncertain times.
Drums & Tambo/Shaker - Jimbo Mathus
Upright Bass - John Kveen
Acoustic Guitar & Vocals - Daphne Parker Powell
Grand Piano - Banjo Bergfeld
Clarinet - Caroline Brunious
Tenor Sax - Brent Rose
Alto Sax - Alejandro 'Alex' Canales
Trombone - Charlie Halloran
Hand Drum - Kirk Bowie Russell
Electric Guitar - Kirk Bowie Russell
BGV - Zoe Di Priester, Anna Laura Quinn
Daphne Parker Powell, singer songwriter, guitarist / keyboardist, multi-instrumentalist, New Orleans based, vulnerable vocal style, cathartic, "Perpetual Light of the Void" (Official Video), "The Death of Cool" album,
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