Crippled Black Phoenix main man Justin Greaves and Killing Mood singer Belinda Kordic pricked up quite a few ears when they first emerged as Se Delan in 2014.
Their debut album The Fall blueprinted a beguiling, gently trippy take on Mazzy Star-esque dream pop, but for this follow-up, they’ve turned the mood lighting down further. The cavernous twangs, rumbling bass and ghostly echoes of Blue Bird and All I Am are instantly reminiscent of The Cure at their most claustrophobic, but Kordic’s wispy, drowning-not-waving voice gives them an extra level of eerieness. We’re told the lyrics “look at madness and how the line between sanity and insanity can at times appear frighteningly thin”. If you say so, although you may well struggle to make out many specific sentences within Kordic’s breathy musings. She has also lent her voice to horror movie soundtracks, but the medium is the message here: the instrumental track In Obscura just as successfully creates an uneasily hypnotic mood. Gently Bow Out has a more Banshees-style aggression, but in either case it demands you turn up the volume, close the curtains and embrace the beautiful darkness.
