Tabitha Booth reimagined Bowie’s Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide with Tori-Amos-esque flickers and volcanic emotional release –

Tabitha Booth proved long ago that authenticity and originality sit at the core of everything she touches, and in Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide, taken from her LP Sound and Vision: The Songs of David Bowie, she turns that unyieldingly affecting magnetism toward a celebration of Bowie that never slips into imitation.  Throughout the LP, she deconstructs some of the most revered songs ever written and places her own artful spin on each arrangement, but it is in Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide that she reaches the zenith of her ability to find fresh avenues of evocative intensity.

As the queen of histrionic-pop-rock crescendos, in this string-carved release, she starts with a trickle of Tori Amos-esque pianos beneath the raw power in her vocals, which feel like the harmonic equivalent of tearing out your soul and screaming into the void with a plea to confront the tragedy before building the single into an inferno of urgency in the vein of Queen and The Last Dinner Party. She refuses to let you believe there is nothing new to take from this iconic piece of Bowie canon. It is rife with grief, romanticism, and spiralling social commentary that hits just as hard today as when Bowie penned it.

Creativity runs in Booth’s blood as the daughter of celebrated macabre artist Paul Booth, and she has shaped a reputation as a rare performer capable of turning ethereal rock and meditative pop into something spellbinding. Her award-winning originals, her improvisational instincts onstage, and her ability to soar vocally while pulling emotion from unexpected corners have allowed her to perform at venues from Webster Hall to Wonderbar. Represented by Mint400 Records, she continues to prove that reinvention is a living force, and Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide stands as her latest testament to that instinct.

Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast