Esben and the Witch / Violet Cries

Esben and the Witch
Violet Cries
(Matador Records)

Like a film shot in various foreboding locations, this is a record with a strong sense of 'the elsewhere'. And from the artwork downwards, which portrays a congested swamp viewed through a poisonous pink filter, it's not an atmosphere you're going to visit lightly.
Leading the quest torch-first is singer Rachel, whose voice is part Robert Smith, part Siouxsie Sioux and part tortured choirgirl. Her echoed shrieks, croons and whispers light the pathway into 'Marching Song', which creates a truly majestic doom, like visiting the castle of some all-powerful vampire and detecting illness in the air itself. 'Marine Fields Glow' floats on the wind, gently swinging in and out of focus while never quite settling into reality. Other songs, like 'Light Streams' and 'Hexagons IV' get frozen at the point of climax; they're so professionally theatrical that, as with great theatre, the stage disappears and you're kind of left alone with the immediacy of the situation.
The band play with a willingness to drape their hands over the instruments, allowing the wrong notes to play like the right notes and conjuring a sense of the supernatural. If there's a problem with the record I'd say that, upon first listen at least, all the reverbed-up caves tend to blur into one another, but for a band who trade in recreating dark dreams, that could equally be an advantage to their cause.
Fatalistic, seductive and quite unique, the band are amongst the coldest I've encountered - but their emotional scope is far from numbing.