It’s often easy to confuse Goth with Gothic. One brings to mind Wayne Hussey, dry ice and a pint of cider and black in a haze of henna hairspray, whilst the other conjures up images of Stoker, Byron and imposing Romanesque architecture. So it is both churlish and lazy to tar Esben and the Witch with the former as I’m sure they’d much rather be the latter. But boy do they make it tough at times.
For the Brighton trio’s second album, following the breakthrough of the swoonsome Violet Cries, ethereal soundscapes (yes!) more evoke the 80s Celtic dreaminess of Dead Can Dance than the oft-compared Cocteau Twins. But amidst the washes of reverb and sonic cathedral-ness, there is much to like. Slow Wave drags you in, grips your throat gently and pulls you under, Yellow Wood is a distant cousin of ‘Loveless’ whilst Iceland Spar actually succeeds in something akin to poppy, albeit in a wall-of-sound shoe-gazing kind of way – no bad thing.
Cast aside any preconceptions and here is an album of well crafted, beautifully-produced otherliness. It’s music that evokes a time and a place out of step with any current zeitgeist, but there’s something reassuring and comfort blanket-like within the ambiance and white noise that pervades and creeps through the ten haunting notes from the underground, surrounding and enveloping Rachel Davies’ beautiful yet ghostly delivery. And when you finally reach the nigh on eight minute climax of Smashed to Pieces in the Still of the Night – your defences are ever so slightly down, the incense sticks have burnt to a cinder and a lazy calm washes over you. Surprisingly good.
[Rating:4]
Listen here: http://pitchfork.com/advance/3-wash-the-sins-not-only-the-face/
