Fan Death - Womb Of Dreams

It feels like an age since the then-mysterious duo burst on the scene with their colourful, good looking videos and pictures and disco strings ahoy. They fit in with the knowingly jaunty and arty age of Franz Ferdinand, CSS and The Long Blondes, but now that trend isn’t as prominent any more it’s interesting to see them trying to prove that their music is just as good and interesting as the visuals, although having interesting album artwork is always a great place to begin.

The album has two obvious sides to it. The italo disco with strings and horns and the more mystical Eastern European influence. Both work well and see Dandi’s deep voice go from dead-eyed to wide-eyed alternately.

Opening track ‘The Consellation’ sees a lot of string-plucking with swooshing starry noises and sees a wide-eyed Dandi repeating “I think that the starless sky might just swallow me tonight”. Their first single ‘Veronica’s Veil’ is a familiar burst of disco strings and strutting; later, ‘Choose Tonight’ is off-beat and summery with fun “aaah”s all over the place and ‘Phantom Sensation’ has plenty of italo noises. ‘Side By Side’ is quiet and atmospheric, building up to big disco bits and even bigger “oooh”s while ‘When The Money’s Right’ is feisty with disco strings and horns, a bongo breakdown and brilliant “ah hom hom”s.

It’s a surprisingly accomplished album with fabulous instrumentation and plenty of endearingly quirky sounds. On the other hand there’s something quite hollow about it all that doesn’t make it quite as fun to listen as it should. There’s plenty to love but there’s something unexciting about it.