Those fiendishly inventive Swedes – Delta blues guitarist Anders Landelius and electronica warlock Niels Nielsen – return for another moody convocation of bleak introversion and spectral atmospherics as Dead Soul.
Ghost enthusiasts might recognise Niels from his pre-production and engineering contributions to Infestissumam, and sturdy melodic connections bridge that record to Dead Soul’s 2013 debut, *In The Darkness *– a mesmerising voyage into doomy industrial soundscapes and dark, baleful howls.
From the perky fusillade of disco-synth that opens Until The Last Breath, The Sheltering Sky portends something far less sinister, that is until Anders’ funereal baritone enters the electro-frenzy – a mournful and arresting brood around which the entire album is arranged. Beginning with Shattered Dreams, the mid-section drifts into a sludgy morass of lumbering tempos and clichés like ‘Life is the strangest thing, you don’t know what it will bring until it’s already there.’
Notwithstanding these yawny interludes, there are enough silvery hooks and ideas to make this a worthy companion for the last cigarette of a very long evening.
