Sometimes German, sometimes English. • The title of this blog used to change from time to time. • Interested in me reviewing your music? Please read this! • I'm also a writer for VeilOfSound.com. • Please like and follow Audiovisual Ohlsen Overkill on Facebook!

2024-06-29

MOONSEEDS - Moonseeds

Was machen die Weedianer auf dem Wüstenplaneten von Sleeps "Dopesmoker"-Cover eigentlich, wenn sie gerade mal nicht auf der Suche nach dem riffgefüllten Land sind?
Das Cover des selbstbetitelten Albums von Moonseeds gibt uns die Antwort: Sie designen 70er-Jahre-Outdoormöbel.

Nun da diese brennende Frage ein für alle mal geklärt ist, gehen wir doch zur logischen Folgefrage über: Wer sind eigentlich Moonseeds?


MOONSEEDS - Moonseeds (2024)

Der Bandname lässt sich ähnlich wie damals die Papermoon Sessions der Psych-Rocker Papir und Electric Moon entschlüsseln. Auch hier handelt es sich um eine - personell allerdings schlankere - Kollaboration. Die Kernaufnahmen der drei Longtracks "Earth", "Sun" and "Moon" entstanden alle an einem Tag nach der 2018er Europatour der Australier Seedy Jeezus  als Improvisationen von deren Gitarristen Lex Waterreus, Electric Moon-Bassistin Komet Lulu und dem damals auch noch erdtrabantischen Sula Bassana, hier mal nicht an der Gitarre, sondern an den Drums - und in der Nachbearbeitung auch noch an Orgel und Mellotron.

Wie ein guter Mondkäse mussten die Sessionaufnahmen erst einmal ein paar Jahre lang ungestört reifen, ehe der Känguruhcowboy 2023 wieder nach Europa geritten kam und die Albumaufnahmen mit weiteren Overdubs vollendet wurden.
Und nun sind sie also nach sechs Jahren endlich bereit, sich lässig aus dem Sand in unsere Ohren zu schlängeln. 

"Earth" beginnt langsam, trocken, sonnenverbrannt. Da kann einem schon die gleichnamige Band Dylan Carlsons in den Sinn kommen. Selbst als die Karawane dann allmählich mit stabiler, recht typisch nach Electric Moon oder Zone Six klingenden Rhythmussektion Fahrt aufnimmt, behält die eindeutig als Hauptdarstellerin in den Mittelpunkt gerückte Gitarre neben vielen langgezogenen kosmischen Noten und geschmackvollen Rockstarfrickeleinen auch immer noch etwas Americana-Twang und eine Menge flimmerndes Outback- und Wüstenflair. Dass hier bereits über zwanzig Minuten vergehen, ohne dass es zu bemerkenswerten Ereignissen außerhalb der geduldigen dynamischen Kurve der Improvisation kommt, ist keineswegs als Zeichen einer langatmigen dramatischen Durststrecke zu verstehen, sondern passt genau zum einen endlosen Horizont beschwörenden Ton.

"Sun" kommt im Vergleich mit seinen sieben Minuten Speilzeit deutlich kompakter daher. Mit Slow-Motion-Beat, langen Keyboardtönen, psychedelischer Bluesgitarre und nun auch etwas unaufdringlichem Gesang von Waterreus lässt sich nicht überhören, dass die frühen Siebziger Jahre von Pink Floyd immer noch als ergiebiger Inspirationsquell sprudeln.

"Moon" liegt dann am Ende sowohl astronomisch, als auch was die Länge und den Sound des Jams angeht, irgendwo zwischen den beiden vorangegangenen Stücken und schließt das Album auf gleichbleibend hohem Niveau ab.

Allen drei Tracks ist gemeinsam, dass sie sehr beständig und diszipliniert ihre Stimmung aufbauen. Dadurch, dass Bass und Drums vor allem darauf aus sind, dem Seedy Jeezus-Drittel des Projekts ein einsturzsicheres Bühnenfundament zu bieten, ist es vor allem die Gitarre, die den Charakter des Albums definiert und es leicht unterscheidbar vom Rest der gewaltigen Diskografie rund um Komet Lulu und Sula Bassana abhebt.
Das Album kann von mir aus auch bedenkenlos ins Starterpack für alle, die vielleicht erst frisch in diesen Krautrockkosmos einsteigen.

Die "Moonseeds" sind erhältlich über Sulatron Records auf CD oder zufallsfarbenem Recyclingvinyl. Die kleine grüne australische Auflage auf Blown Music für alle, die ihr monatliches Erspartes gerne für transkontinentales Porto verprassen, ist leider schon ausverkauft.






FOLTERKAMMER - Weibermacht

RUF!
*zisch*

MICH!
*peitsch*

AN!
*klatsch*


Vielleicht wird eine schlechte Idee ja irgendwann gut, wenn an sie nur extrem genug übertreibt. Das wäre zumindest eine passable Theorie, wenn man davon ausginge, dass schlimme Telefondominafernsehwerbeclips (Ja, schlag schon zu, aber halte bitte die Klappe dabei!) zu den Inspirationen von Folterkammer's "Weibermacht" gehören.

Anderseits ist das Konzept dieser im Umfeld von Imperial Triumphant entstandenen new yorker Band mit ursprünglich aus der deutschsprachigen Schweiz stammenden Sängerin ja vielleicht von Anfang an tatsächlich eine gute Idee gewesen...


FOLTERKAMMER - Weibermacht (CD) (2024)

Nun sind natürlich sadomasochistische Inhalte kein komplettes Novum im Metal, man denke nur daran (oder besser nicht) zu welchen leicht übertriebenen Extremen es die guten alten Pungent Stench in den Neunzigern getrieben haben. Und schon lange vorher als Metal noch ein Funkeln in Tony Iommis Augen war, haben Velvet Underground die "Venus In Furs" besungen. Deutschsprachig ist der größte Hit sicherlich auch außerhalb des Genres mit "Bitte Bitte" in Berlin zu verorten.

Auch Operngesang hat es Metal schon jenseits von Gastauftritten (Celtic Frost / Paradise Lost) und skandinavischem Tralala (Nightwish / Therion) in extremere Gefilde wie Fleshgod Apocalypse oder  - zusätzlich vermengt mit Darkjazz - The Lovecraft Sextet geschafft.

Wie Folterkammer diese Elemente zwischen altmodischem Peitschenklischee, feministischer Geschichtsstunde und augenzwinkerndem Spaß am Schock zusammenbringen, hat jedoch eine neue Qualität, die vor allem mit der Persönlichkeit von Sängerin Andromeda Anarchia, die ich vor zweieinhalb Jahren mal live mit Kilter erleben durfte, steht und nicht fällt.

Abgesehen von kurzen barocken Zwischenspielen oder Klassik-Reminiszenzen herrscht musikalisch vor allem ballernder und blastender Black Metal der ziemlich eingängigen Art mit vielen melodischen Leadgitarren. Es ist zwar derbes Zeug mit teils dissonant todesbleiernem Einschlag, doch für den Normalmetalfan vermutlich einfacher zugänglich als Zachary Ezrins Hauptband Imperial Triumphant.

Die vom Hörer zu nehmenden Schwellen bei Folterkammer sind also nicht Ohrwurmverweigerung and dystopisches Endzeitjazzchaos, sondern zumindest für deutsche Muttersprachler der besagte Ruf!Mich!An!-Cringe, wenn es textlich um eingeschlossene Fickpistolen, mit Blut signierte Peitschenpoesie und das obligatorische Füßeküssen geht. Daneben werden auch noch historische Perönlichkeiten thematisiert. So soll Aristoteles, ganz egal wie schlau er ist auf seine Domina hören und die "Herrin der Schwerter" wird als Femme Fatale und Heldin der "Weibermacht" gefeiert.

Insgesamt drehen sich die meisten Texte aber einfach um meistens gar nicht mal besonders explizit dargestellten Kink für alle, die auf das tatsächlich schon etwas angestaubte Sexdungeon-Klischee stehen. Das kann man mit doppeltem Boden oder als Gegenpol zur tatsächlich widerlichen Rammstein-Row-Zero-Kultur feministisch aufladen - oder man nimmt es einfach genauso headbangend zur Kenntnis, wie man im Metal sonst Spaß mit Satanismus, Gore und Drachentötern hat.

Letztendlich sind wir, egal ob wir darauf stehen, der unten ohne kämpfenden Amazone zu dienen ("Leck mich!") oder nicht, als Metalfans ja eh primär an Sound und nicht an Inhalten interessiert - auch wenn die Stimme, welche diese Inhalte transportiert solch ein Alleinstellungsmerkmal ist wie hier.
Denn Andromeda Anarchia singt ja nicht einfach Großvaters harmonisch ansprechende Operette, sondern verziert diese mit schrillen Spitzen und bösartigen Bögen - und ist genauso im extremen Black Metal-Gekrächze und Geschrei zu Hause.

Nein, ihre Rolle als Oberwärterin der Folterkammer steht weniger in der Tradition der weiter oben genannten Beispiele aus der Metalwelt, sondern ist viel mehr eine überzeichnete Hommage an Nina Hagen, die alles, was hier gesanglich zu hören ist, eigentlich schon im Punkkontext vorweggenommen hat. Nun allerdings wird Micha für das Vergessen des Farbfilms halt nicht mehr mit dem Beziehungsaus gedroht, sondern umgehend mit körperlicher Züchtigung gemaßregelt.
Hagen meets die Spanische Fetischinquisition und Sméagol singing Black Metal. Das ist die Formel und sie funktioniert ziemlich großartig.

Musikalisch muss ich allerdings einschränken, dass mir das Spitzenpotential des Projekts noch nicht ausgeschöpft scheint. Wir sind hier deutlich weiter als auf dem Debüt "Die Lederpredigt", die mir einfach noch nicht genug sagte, um sie meiner Sammlung einzuverleiben. Was ich hier noch zu bemängeln habe, ist die etwas zu herkömmliche Struktur. Statt Strophe-Refrain-Strophe-Refrain-Schemata würde mir zumindest bei einigen Songs ein unkonventionellerer, dramatischer orientierter Aufbau besser gefallen. Die Mucke ist schon durchweg geil, verlässt sich aber zu sehr auf ihre Ohrwürmer.

Anderseits könnten eben jene  - gepaart mit der nach der Klärung, dass dies lyrisch vielleicht nicht safe for work sein könnte, eigentlich überflüssigen Kontroverse - durchaus dabei helfen, aus dieser Band ein ziemlich großes Ding zu  machen.

Die Wahl des einzigen englischsprachigen Songs zum Abschluss des Albums fiel auf ein sm- wie musikhistorisch bewusstes Cover; es ist eine schräg und schrill stampfende Version von "Venus In Furs".

Um mit Bela B. in "Ignorama" (Die Ärzte) zu sprechen: "Du sitzt auf mit, die Welt ist schön / Wenn Du auf mir sitzt, könnt es mir gar nicht besser gehn."
Das finale Fazit überlasse ich allerdings Deichkind:

Leider geil.






2024-06-26

SOLAR TEMPLE - A Gift That Should Have Been Reserved For The Great Lights / GALG - Teloorgang


It's double review time with a couple of new albums on Consouling Sounds! Not even two weeks ago the Belgian label released the long-awaited collaboration "Embers Beget The Divine" by Solar Temple and Dead Neanderthals.
If you don't own that potential live album of the year yet, you should seriously consider adding two more items to your cart, because this Friday two more - partly related - releases are going to see the light of day / darkness of night:




SOLAR TEMPLE - A Gift That Should Have Been Reserved For The Great Lights (CD) (2024)

Here the connection is obvious. Almost simultanously with their collaborative Roadburn Festival recording Solar Temple are also bringing us the successor of their other Roadburn (Redux) recording "The Great Star Above Provides".

Since this material actually predates both of those works and was laid down in the pandemic era 2020/2021 it's save to assume that this is a studio recording for a change, even though the credits on the digipak are very minimal. I guess the long album title just didn't leave enough space for other information. They managed to provide the full lyrics of the only track with vocals though.

Said track is the opener "Ejaculation", which - sorry to disappoint all you porn freaks out there - seems to rather refer to a metaphysical, philosophical, cosmic event that your profane noodle flipflapping. Or the Dutch duo just enjoys trolling. The words are spoken in a deliberately overacted way (reminiscent of Bong) to a dramatic horror movie organ, whooshing cymbals and Dark Ambient sounds, before suddenly a hard, appearantly slightly confused stop and go Electronic beat and Synthwave bass join the anti-party.

And if you thought this was just the sinister (twelve minute) intro, before the album takes off and delivers some of that open grandeur which both previous releases offered so much of in different ways - think again, because the "Celestial Kingdom" may test your nerves! No wide Post Rock gesture, no cool cowboy twang like on "Great Star", no stupendously layered Psychedelic Black Metal lead guitar ecstasis like on "Embers". Fuck melodies, fuck Rock'n'Roll, most of this one is merely a droning electro-industrial soundscape with a weird brutal pulse. It's the soundtrack to being stuck in the barbed wire around an abandoned weapons factory that has been sectretly taken over by the machines.

By now it should be clear that the two guitar players are not even playing guitars here. Instead this album explores a decidedly different route of Drone, Noise and dark atmospheres.
It's funny that Solar Temple are still often labeled a Black Metal band. Gotta add a big all caps "POST" to that!
The last track "A Life Before Life" confirms that yet again. It is a piece, which gets wider, bigger and richer on variety - there's even a part which conveys a sense of Black Metal-ish angst -, but the musical language is almost completely removed from Rock aesthetics and rather feels like a John Carpenter-inspired dystopian movie score.

And while all in all I still prefer the other mentioned albums for their larger scale alone, this shorter, condensed yet stylistically bolder version of Solar Temple actually provides quite an intriguing contrast. It's always great to see artists throwing themselves into experiments with so little fear.
No doubt, these dudes are on the mission of building an interesting unpredictbale body of work.  










GALG - Teloorgang (CD) (2024)

At least on first sight Galg's connection to "Embers Beget The Divine" is not as close, but it's there: This band comes from Nijmegen, which is also Dead Neanderthal City. And speaking of that duo Otto Kokke can actually be heard as a guest with a wild saxophone performance on "Hemeltergend", the opener of this album.

"Teloorgang", just like Galg, was inspired by trying to find beauty in the modern world,  and failing. ... says the official press promo. And they must have been searching for a long time, because the guitar/guitar/drums (plus lots of panicked screaming) trio recorded these fifty crushing minutes way back in 2015, but somehow it took until now for them to be unleashed upon the world. And it wasn't the simplistic cover artwork which took so long. Take a picture of a flying bird and invert the colours... I can give you a dozen variations of that from my archives before the album is over. Still good design I must admit.

My favorite band with the same kind of line-up is Big|Brave, another great one would be Slomatics. Or Boris - when they feel like it - of course. And when it comes to creating a super heavy sound with a deeply satisfying crunchy guitar texture, Galg can certainly apply for membership in this gang, even though the production of their Industrial/No Wave-influenced Sludge Rock often emphasizes the drums over the gnarly guitar drone.

But let me backpedal a bit! It actually feels wrong to assume specific influences, because you can't really tell from what kind (Hardcore, Metal, please-don't-call-us-Metal, etc.) of background these guys are coming.
Given that drummer M - the poor lads only have one-letter-names - also plays in Fluisteraars there's actually a good chance they've developed their sound on a Post Black Metal foundation. Oh, by the way, outside of Galg the man answers to the name of Mink Koops and is also one half of Solar Temple. So yeah, this is all incestuous as fuck. But thanks to George R.R. Martin everyone loves incest now, right? The album finale "Doorn In Het Oog" definitely shows musical parallels to the guitar-centric work of Solar Temple. But before that a lot of other comparisons could be made, ranging from the desolate bleakness of fellow Dutchmen Farer to the monolithic repetitiveness of overused go-to reference Swans.

For the same reason I don't have a rating system with numbers and abolished the favorite song category from my reviews long ago, I am also not giving you FFO ("for fans of") lists here. It's just a pain in the ass, which takes me ages to get my head around..
In case of "Teloorgang" however it might have actually saved me some time writing this, because I came up quite quickly with Caspar Brötzmann MassakerSumac, Sunn O))).

Without overthinking how adequate those names actually are, I think the message should be clear: This is some fine (almost) hopeless desolate dirt. Come wallow in it!



Both albums can be pre-ordered on CD or vinyl at Consouling Sounds and will be released very soon on Friday, June 28th.









2024-06-25

MONO - Oath

Mono have released a new album and yes, it's a Mono album. So if you already know what that means, you also know what to do, I guess.


MONO -Oath (Moonlight Drawings vinyl 2LP) (2024)

Mono have so much become not only masters of their genre, but actually a definition of their brand of epic instrumental Post Rock, that it's pretty much unthinkable that after decades they would suddenly turn towards something completely different. And especially given how much space for variation their established framework already allows them, why would they even want to do that?

So yes, of course all the dynamics, the long build-ups, the longing and heartache, the hope and heaviness, the overwhelming wall of harmony... it's all there on this new double album once again.
Production-wise Mono is also strong as ever. Laid down in February 2023 "Oath" is among the last recording and mixing jobs of their long time friend Steve Albini, who sadly passed away last month.

The only question is which flavour they have chosen this time. After a couple of rawer and darker albums and a bit of new orientation with the inclusion of fresh elements into their sound on "Pilgrimage Of The Soul" the heavenly cover artwork of "Oath" looks like a continuation of a story which began on said previous album.

And indeed it picks up on some of its stylistic choices, especially with drummer Dahm exploring some more angular rhythmic ideas, which could have been influenced by the work with his duo JeGong and also him drumming live for Årabrot now. (Emphasis on could, because chronologically this doesn't wholly work out.)

Mono live 2022
Even more so however this album breathes a spirit that connects back to works like "The Last Dawn" or "Hymn To The Immortal Wind": It features a string octet and brass quartet and they are both featured a lot throughout the whole double album.

All eleven tracks of "Oath" are just enormously lush and gorgeous, awash with esperance, light and cosmic love. Mono are their most cinematic and solacing self here without repeating their greatest hits.

So far this album grows and grows on me and I want to open my arms in cringy Creed  style wider and wider each time I board this flight. This is music to let your heart float through the sky, unboundedly beautiful and powerful. "Time Goes By" says the carthatically crescending eleventh (and final) track. The feeling of melancholic happiness however lingers long after the seventy minutes of this album have passed.

As usual Pelagic Records offers "Oath" in various - mostly of course now sold out - coloured vinyl variants. I found my favorite outside of the label shop in a retailer version in white, gold and transparent blue this time. Looks and sounds great. Another jewel from the Japanese masters!






2024-06-24

CHELSEA WOLFE and KÆLAN MIKLA live at Gruenspan, Hamburg (June 22nd 2024)


There's a European football championship going on in Germany.

Yes, right. I didn't care one bit either. Years in the past I actually followed tournaments and even ironically draped the room in flags I got for free, which would feel so icky in today's disgusting nationalism climate. But this whole rotten and corrupted professional sports thing just has become so uninteresting for me.... I only received minimal random informations through my social media feeds and haven't watched a second of it. And since I'm living on the countryside and my co-workers are as oblivious as me, I didn't really have it on my mind when I drove to Hamburg on Saturday. Only when I neared my prefered free parking spot and saw a couple of Turkish flags being waved from inside a car it slowly occured to me, that there might be a little problem with a huge crowd watching the game right there. Felt like an idiot, but luckily I was early enough to find another (of course not free) place far away from quite dangerous adreneline-high drivers randomly speeding, stopping and changing directions.

Well, fast forward to the line outside the Gruenspan, I must admit that with all those football carnival tourists around and the beautiful summer sun still shining the black crowd waiting to be let into a dark room to enjoy nocturnal melancholic music stood out more than usual. 

The championship takes place all four years, and four years ago Chelsea Wolfe was also supposed to play in Hamburg. But due to you know what her show only won my personal ranking of the Top 7 canceled shows of 2020.

Her appearance at this year's Roadburn Festival also clashed with too much other stuff to attend it, so it really had been a long time, since I had last seen the queen of contemporary Gothic live. August 2018 it was... wow. Yes, this show was defintely long-awaited and highly anticipated from my side.





KÆLAN MIKLA
These ladies from Iceland have been on my list of bands I'd like to see for while now too, so we were really checking boxes here. The assigned duties in this trio were vocals, bass and keys/flute/electronic beats, which reads a bit unfair, but was actually quiet balanced.

Bittersweet between profound and quirky (especially the sometimes very high vocals), often minimalist and always very 1980's Kælan Mikla couldn't have sounded more just Gothic, but somehow made every cliché they incorporated completely their own and were even able to deliver a couple of little sonic surprises when you thought you had already figured them out. Recognizable and with a sympathetic cool charisma they certainly made it hard not to like them. Undoubtly a worthy support for Chelsea Wolfe!








CHELSEA WOLFE
Did you bet on Chelsea beginning her set with her new album's opener "Whispers In the Echo Chamber"? Well, congratulations! You won and probably earned a cent on the Euro. No, this show wasn't one for earth-shattering surprises. And why should it have been? After the long wait everything the audience wanted was just her and her trusted band including long-time songwriting partner Ben Chisholm and drum bestie Jess Gowrie doing their dark magical thing.

So this was definitely the artist everyone knew and loved with her familiar versatile sound between the nightly shades of Alternative/Noise Rock, Electronica, Doom, Ambient, Industrial, Folk and all the blurry demons and spirits flying inbetween those pillars.

The most obvious difference to the last European tour was the amount of songs in which Wolfe just sang, neither playing electric nor acoustic guitar and Gowrie played the electronic pads of her drumkit. That was simply due to the fact that the set included all ten songs of "She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She" and this album's particular demands.

When you perform all your new stuff and afterwards I love it even more than before, than you definietly won the cup. It's always such a spellbinding experience to see Chelsea Wolfe create this distanced but capturing aura with her ethereal voice. And on this night - in the Gruenspan venue, which isn't always the sound engineer's best friend - the mix favoured it, even when you were standing in the front row, even when it was meant to be buried under the flood of emotional noise. From the flawless whispered verses in the opener on it was just clear that this was going to be a great sounding show.

Despite the focus on recent material there was still enough time to play seven other songs from most albums of her back cataloque. And it all being brilliant choices ("Feral Love", "Carrion Flowers", "Flatlands"...) makes it hard to criticize the setlist.
Sure, a track from "Apokalypsis", preferably "Movie Screen" would have been the absolutely delicious icing on the cake. And especially since the "Birth Of Violence" tour never happened on this side of the Atlantic, I had secretly been hoping for maybe a little cluster of that semi-acoustic material now, but the band only played "The Mother Road" in a more plugged version. Which again was great, too.
The bottom line (and every other fan will probably agree, only with other songs) is that the absolutely perfect Chelsea Wolfe show just needs to be forty minutes or so longer! But of course it's greedy to request that, since seventeen songs already made a really good overall length.

At the very end the singer stood alone with her guitar to perform a stripped down version of "The Liminal" - and if you've not only seen my cover image for this review but any fan or photographer presenting their favorite pictures from this tour, you know that this finale was also visually iconic.
The whole light show had been conceptually simple, yet very effective and unique so far. But this fiery swirling maelstrom of light and nebula will be one of most palpable, magical and memorable sights to see on any stage this year, even if you're attending events which are twenty and more times bigger and more expensive.

And no, I'm not talking about watching football with hordes of drunken Englishmen. I will admit though that on this night I felt slightly posh and snobbish being a part of an exclusive minority with a superior choice of leisure activity.
I also still don't know which teams played against each other and who won. This show however will be etched in my mind at least as long as Zinedine Zidane's headbutt or Brazil's 1:7 loss against Germany.

Yes, even I remember those. Goth save the Queen!








2024-06-22

EYE - Dark Light

Electro-Gothic-Doom

My work here is done I guess. Everything you need to know about Eye has been said by Eye on Eye's Bandcamp page. So my review is already redundant before I've even begun writing it.

But no worries, I'll praise this swoon-worthily beautiful (but in a cool way, bro!) debut album now anyway.


EYE - Dark Light (green/purple half and half vinyl LP) (2024)

Eye is a new trio led by MWWB / Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard frontwoman Jessica Ball. The step from the Stoner Doom Metal band to the sound on "Dark Light" isn't actually that gigantic, because MWWB already established Jessica's dreamy ethereal vocal presence and the heavy use of synthesizers. It's still significant though.

Eye are even dreamier and much more Electronic. But it depends on the song. Some tracks are more focussed on synth bass and strummed Shoegaze six-strings, others lean more towards a floating guitar sound. Everything oozes a contemporary Gothic vibe and is delivered in subdued Doom pace. And when you think the distinction between the two bands couldn't be clearer you might suddenly be crushed by a tasty Metal crunch after all.
Previous comparisons of Ball's music to Undersmile, King Woman or Yob are still applicable to varying degrees, but you have scale them back in favour of achingly beautiful variations of Dream Pop, Post Rock, Emma Ruth Rundle and whatever else feels light and angelic, yet also sad and eery. And all of this is achieved without artificial kitsch. This album always sounds heartfelt and real. 

On their debut Jessica BallGid Goundry (drums) and Jonathan Brooks-Jones (synths) have already defined their own vision and steer it into slightly different directions with each song.

If we look at this year's releases so far the variety in which the Electro-Gothic-Doom presents itself here, as well as the sheer quality of it all puts "Dark Light" in comfortable vicinity of Chelsea Wolfe (who I will finally see live again tonight, yay!) and Lethe for me.
Hell, even the colour schemes of the three covers look related. Speaking of it: The artwork and two-coloured vinyl are also beautiful match here.

So what's not to love? Already being a fan of MWWB helps to enjoy this, but is definitely not required, because Eye are just as great on their own. An absolutely splendid record!