As the notion of ‘Goth’ continues to endure through life spans of other supposed trends and happenings, it’s revitalisation in the hands of bands that eke out gloomy atmospherics from pieces of its dismembered corpse continues to surprise. Besides its influence on strains of metal and minimal, bands such as Salem have strayed into a sort of Goth-hop territory, in which their sound can evoke both horror and mirth, and even The XX, in their way, mine the aesthetic for mood and tone.

Esben and the Witch are a different proposition, literary but not, seemingly, pretentious, gloomy but not dispiriting, they breathe life back into decaying ephemera, bend bellows together and blow ancient sounds across new frontiers. Their s is a mood resolutely Gothic, but, you could argue, not resolutely Goth. The term Witch House has been bandied around to describe the band too, but, after listening to Violet Cries repeatedly (as it should be listened to); definition doesn’t seem to lend itself well to band or their output.

Theirs is a shapeless sound, fluid structures that travel but rarely with purposeful direction other than to reach one final exhalation of breath. Atmospherics are built from buzzing guitars, heavy bursts of droning noise, electronic dissonance and pulses. Like British Sea Power they drudge up the battlefield, but recent single ‘Marching Song’ battered militaristic percussion or opener ‘Argyria’ reverberating howls sound more like bloody aftermaths, haunted fields in which mud laps at crimson and bones bury themselves like branches fallen from bough.

Yet as quickly as these images are summoned they go. E&TW cut themselves mercifully short on most tracks, allowing Violet Cries to feel more cohesive than you might expect of an album by a band that list their influences as ‘glaciers, caverns and waning moons’. That they can negotiate from reverberating pulses of eeriness into all out guitar shreds so easily is one of their more bewitching talents, as is Rachel Davies’ commanding vocal. Likened to Florence Welch, Davies delivery could be called gung-ho if the word didn’t sit so uncomfortably amongst the band’s lugubrious semantics, and she’s a much more commanding presence that Welch could be said to be, composing the band’s sombre compositions with delivery alone.

Whilst much might be made of E&TW’s nostalgic tone and sound, investigate and you’ll find a modernity that underpins Violet Cries foreboding tracks. ‘Chorea’ shifts and splinters into quick bursts of programmed percussion, ‘Warpaths’’ dispels itself as Davies crystalline vocals refracted onto itself ad infinitum, culminating in shards of noise splitting through the tracks conclusion and into live favourite ‘Euminedes’’. Violet Cries might not be the easiest listening for a mainstream audience, but that fact, you imagine, doesn’t give E&TW one moment of worry. - Alex Hibbert

MySpace | Website