Witch of the Vale
Lovesongs for the Damned
Cleopatra Records
While Glaswegian darkwavers Witch of the Vale haven’t been completely absent since the release of their excellent 2021 LP Coherence, but the goal of new EP Lovesongs for the Damned is apparently to reintroduce the band through a combination of new material and interstitial singles. As a bite-sized sample of the band, it does an excellent job of capturing the appeal of their earthy, vocally driven sound. Opening with “Love of a Father”, one the band’s more hard, guitar-driven numbers might be a concession to broaden their appeal, although it in no way compromises the loose ethereal synths and the stunning voice of Erin Hawthorne. Those elements come to the fore on the excellent “What’s Left of Me”, a foggy number whose sequences and striking sound design flow around its indistinct edges and structure. It’s the form that best suits Witch of the Vale and informs the lovely ballad that is the title track, and the ethereal “The Curse”, both of which have soundtrack-like textures. The cover of Nine Inch Nails’ venerable “Hurt” is fine but feels unnecessary; the band’s strength comes from the fusion of their sonic identity and compositional style, which remains as distinctive as ever. Hopefully this is the signal of more to come, and soon.
Sintflut
II
self-released
Post-punk, coldwave, synthpunk: it’s easy to pick out threads of each of those traditions in the second release from Swedish quartet Sintflut, but likely everyone reading this knows how handily those neighbouring styles can reach over into one another’s territory to steal a cup of sugar or couch surf for a while. Despite the theoretically austere sound of the low bass, impassive German vocals, flanged guitar, and icy synths that make up the six tracks on display here, there’s an organic looseness to nodding tempos here, with a pleasantly lo-fi haze in the recording further blurring the elements together. While it’s perhaps tempting to identify Malaria! as the ur source for cool and sparsely mechanical numbers like “Scham”, more recent acts also come to mind. There’s a nervous thrash to “Succé!” and “Unerreichbar”, the former having its guitar do double time over nimble synthlines which recalls the productive but brief fusion of deathrock and synthpunk in the early aughts. Don’t let the rough and tumble recording trick you into thinking there’s anything slapdash here – there’s a good sense of editing and curation happening here, with each track closing out the second its nervous feints and lunges have done their work.
