Lilypad the Dragondog – Millie Sievert and The Radioactive Five (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

After sonically, and perhaps physically, but don’t quote me on that, cavorting with Faust Jones on an album that saw Mille Sievert wander, possibly, heavier musical realms, it feels as if she has brought some of that rock and roll vibe back with her as she leads The Radioactive Five through another full-length album.

Opener, Cloudy Dreamer (Balancing Clouds on the Tips of My Toes)… it looks like she has also picked up the habit of long and complex song titles from the eNuminous & Archimedes front man too… has a touch of the ethereal meets energetic nu-metal that the likes of Evanescence used to do so well.

But the ever mercurial Millie would never be as predictable to head down just one possible path, and with that in mind, Mi Gran Admiración, which follows, is a folk-pop ballad sung in Spanish, proof, if it were needed, that you can’t get too complacent where Millie and the gang are concerned. And if the title track also falls into poppier realms, songs such as Song of Silence Shining and Here Not There echo the opening track somewhat.

Pushing this eclectic approach almost to its illogical conclusion, we find shimmering, spacious, and almost nursery rhyme pop in the form of Froze in Time (Wrath of Whales), 50s surf-pop twangs with Here Not There, pagan trip-hop courtesy of Fire and Brimstone, in the Night (Millie’s Samhain Dreaming), and even a cool take on Curtis Mayfield-inspired conscious soul with Where Sounds Turn Strange (No Creation Mythos).

Since Millie’s arrival in the 21st century (and for those not in the loop, that is a story in its own right), she has quickly found her way around modern music creation. Perhaps due to her lack of tribalistic genre loyalty or knowledge of the supposed rules and regulations, she has no problem mixing and matching, moulding and melding all manner of music together to create tracks that sound like nothing else and albums that wander the length and breadth of the musical landscape brilliantly.

Eclecticism, their name is Millie Sievert.