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Things to Ruin [Ghostlight 8-4445]
Composer-lyricist Joe Iconis' Things to Ruin starts out with a song that goes "I was born this morning, gonna die tonight" and continues with a song that goes "Mamma, cut me deeper, cuz if I see I'm bleeding then I'll know that I'm alive." I don't think the singer is actually talking to his mother, standing above him with a Sweeney-razor. It's not that kind of a show. I think.

Now, these two tracks might not sound like the type of musical you want to listen to; I certainly had misgivings about continuing with the two-disc cast album of Things to Ruin. But maybe, just maybe — I thought — Mr. Iconis has something to say, something up his seemingly blood-soaked sleeve. So I persevered, and was almost immediately rewarded. The third track, "Nerd Love," is written in the same language as the first two but turns out to be an interesting and attractive — if unconventional — duet.

That, in itself, is not the reason to pay attention to Things to Ruin. Once Iconis has sufficiently shocked and awed us, he turns out some theatre songs that are good by any standard. "Asleep On My Arm," for example, in which Iconis draws a character — an immature college-type — and shows him starting to grow within a three-minute slice of time, simply because this girl likes to sleep on his arm and (he muses wonderingly) maybe deserves to sleep on his arm. For now. It turns out that Iconis has a talent for creating character in song; these characters are very much today, and they and their author seem to be a generation or more younger than the Adam Guettel-Jason Robert Brown-David Yazbek group. Iconis has talent, a refreshing voice, and an ability to make us listen. "The Guide to Success" is blatantly cynical in a shark-eat-shark way ("eventually every relationship ends, so throw out your baby and murder your friends"). "Headshot" is A Chorus Line updated; "Things will be a better with a better headshot," sings the out-of-work actress.

The second disc, which I suppose represents Act 2, offers a searing song about a high-school kid waiting to be picked for a "Dodge Ball" game, petrified that he will be chosen last; and another about a pre-teen whose best (and only) friend moves away to Albuquerque. With these two songs plus the aforementioned "Asleep On My Arm," I totally forget about dying tonight and "mamma cut me deeper"; anyone who can write these three songs earns my eager attention. The cast includes seven young singers, none of whom I believe I have previously made the acquaintance of. But I shall look out for some of them. (One, who does so well with that "Asleep on My Arm," is Nick Blaemire, composer/lyricist of the infamous Glory Days .) Iconis himself pounds the score out at the keyboard, and distinctively delivers the shark-eat-shark song.

Things to Ruin falls somewhere between a revue and a song cycle, I suppose; it is different, yeah, but that is one of its several charms. It was first performed at the now-departed Zipper Theater, opening for a month on Halloween 2008; it was remounted for two weeks in the spring of 2009 at Second Stage. I didn't catch Things to Ruin in the theatre, but I'm glad to have caught up with it on CD.