Sons & Daughters - Mirror Mirror

After a three year break, arty Glaswegian four-piece Sons & Daughters (a name inspired by Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are-A Changing,’ as opposed to any long running Australian soap of the 1980s, sadly one might add), make a welcome return.

With a noticeable change in pace and direction to the sound of 2008’s ‘The Gift’, ‘Mirror Mirror’ is a genuine slow burner of a record. Taking a sparse minimalistic approach to each song, we’re left with ten rather raw sounding stabs at dark dreamy pop, inspired by stories of serial killers, witchcraft, death and suicide – all themes that resonate throughout the album’s ten functional, if unspectacular, tracks.

This thematic continuity works well for the band and mirrors (no pun intended) the work of history obsessed post-rockers iLikeTrains, if only for their approach to song writing. Opening track ‘Silver Spell’ is swathed in moody synths and stop-start melody, the darker-than-dark ‘The Model’ follows this up with its subtle nuances in light and shade, whilst ‘Axed Actor’ recalls at times the work of late 90’s Low. Although the two share a certain amount of nihilism to their work, whereas Low bludgeons the listener with its unspoken intensity, Sons & Daughters can leave you feeling somewhat cold, ‘Mirror Mirror’’s delicately constructed soundscapes going just that little too far at times for empathic listening.

Reflective and dreamy, this is indie minimalist art-rock of the purest kind, the type that is so incredibly hard to dance to. It is a beast that requires multiple listens before the album even begins to make its journey into your consciousness, and whilst few will have the patience for it, those who persevere will are likely to be richly rewarded.