Cleopatra 2016
Ritual Damage
Danse Macabre to massacre your senses to, as Texas decadents serve up delicate desperation and a solid groove.
“Nothing Left”: a piece buried deep in this album, can be its motto, because for all the motion underneath AD’s hood their heart is running on empty – but those are the rules of a Goth game anyway. The Austin trio’s debut is full of suicidal gloom, glacial riffs of “Here To Bleed” opening the gates to despondency that permeates the entire record, while metal shades lurk in the songs’ industrial clang to stage death disco. Languid in a funereal way on the likes of “Carnal Dirge” which is coated in thick electronic glaze, the band’s sound and stance perfectly reflect a state depicted in “In Elegant Decay” whose “you love the abuse” refrain will play in one’s mind for days on end.
Claustrophobia may seem to crumble in a brilliant cover of “Voices Carry” that Jon Gilyeat’s bass and Erik Gustafson’s synthesizers take to the horizon of hope, yet cuts such as “Torn Apart” where beats are heavy and infectious seem to conspire and keep the listener in emotional limbo. In a weird way, “Coma White” turns into an anthem, devoid of uplift and memorable at the same time, whereas the title track lifts the veil off the ensemble’s cinematic possibilities. The Texans offer a dark, depressive hour here, and the damage is done; take it to the screen, and the light would appear at the end of the tunnel to the afterlife.
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