English trio Esben And The Witch are a difficult band to categorize.
Their music takes gothic imagery and fairy-tale mythology, and melds them with modern guitar rock and haunting vocals to produce a wholly unique sound.
At their best, Esben And The Witch deliver music that is eerie, stirring, and lyrical all at once. It all comes together on the tracks ‘Slow Wave’ and ‘When That Head Splits’, with lead singer Rachel Davies’ vocals soaring and tumbling in synchrony with layers of anxious guitars and edgy drums.
Unfortunately, there are too many moments on Wash The Sins, Not Only The Face where it all falls apart.
The vocals often seem to sit separately to the instruments, and the different components start to take it in turns to dominate, or simply crash into each other.
This is most apparent on the closing track, ‘Smashed To Pieces In The Still Of The Night’, which after a muscular instrumental opening loses its intensity the moment the vocals come in.
The album suffers from the extra attention this places on the lyrics, which, despite Davies’ strong singing, are too often inscrutable, and occasionally meaningless, rather than poetic.
For a band whose sound aims at grandeur, this is a serious failing, and what could have been a powerful album is let down by the relative weakness of the lyrics and an inability to tie the different threads of their music together.
Fans of Esben And The Witch will no doubt enjoy this new offering, but for new listeners it may prove difficult to warm to.
