Esben & The Witch - Violet Cries

Remember the days when Goths were the group of outcast kids with long hair, massive boots and having various objects thrown at them in the corner of the playground? Well, these days things are rather different: Goth is cool again. For the first time since the early 1980’s, when the soundtrack consisted of large doses of Siouxsie & The Banshees and The Cure, there is a large influx of dark, mind-bending sounds to satisfy the most depraved needs of every self-loathing narcissist; a void filled in the meantime only by Trent Reznor’s industrial madness.

Esben & The Witch are certainly part of this crop. Their debut album ‘Violet Cries’ encompasses goth, electronic, shoegaze and psychedelic vibes that certainly fits into this pastiche of a pre-apocalyptic world we’ve created for ourselves. ‘Marching Song’ is the band’s lead single from the album. Already drawing comparisons to Florence & The Machine because of this track and I suppose it’s easy to see why; the beat and the vocal are similar, but where Florence lacks in the ethereal noise department Esben certainly delivers. Simple song structures laced with visceral, inscrutable lacerations of My Bloody Valentine-esque noise is not necessarily a groundbreaking combination but it is certainly refreshing and, most importantly, it is executed with a remarkable degree of panache and competence.

‘Violet Cries’ follows in the same vein as The Horrors’ ‘Primary Colours’ or The Raveonettes’ ‘Lust Lust Lust’, or indeed the aforementioned Florence & The Machine’s ‘Lungs’, but brings something entirely new to the table. Well worth picking up.