Lakes : "Arms in Twilight"

The acoustic guitar gets these guys branded as neo-folk, but judging from the opening track of this project from Melborne Austraila, is straight up goth. At times this does create a Cult of Youth like vibe, but these guys don't have the same rambling punk feel and are darker. "Carved Remains" has at times a militant drum beat , but it relaxes into a more chilly groove. The chord progression grows more exotic as the vocals take on more of a sneer for " Wield the Edge". The pulse of this song is cool though later in the album when everything begins to have a similar throb I begin to slightly reconsider my thoughts. The first song that really hits me as having a bleak folk sound is "Triumph of Spring".  This song comes across as being a little looser in the composition than the first two songs. There is more of a punk thing happening with the attitude behind "Vertical Strain". It carries a little more drive in the bass line than the songs that have proceded it , but they are no where near as scrapp

There is a dark current flowing under "The Great Spiralling World" as the synth over power the guitar creating more of a Cure like feel.The singer's baritone is more melodic than say some of Douglas P's more punk inspired work. Sean Bailey keeps this a one man show in the studio. This tends to create rather uniform sound. " Thrust From the Grey" has a down trodden cadence to it's strum, but is not too far removed from what this album has already given us, which is the draw back to being a one-man band, your influence are more immediate and your can find yourself with tunnel vision with the input of others. The more traditional sounds of neo-folk begin to surface on "Dragon Current". The vocals are layered with a female voice in the mix that helps by giving this song a much needed color this album craved.

There is something about "The Rose Widow " that reminds me of "the Blood" by the Cure.  The vocals doubled up on the chorus work well with the chanted melody. The drums have a very tribal feel to them. Something about the last verse sounds like it has more of a death rock whine to it. This is not what I would think of when thinking about what music that comes out of Australia might sound like. I'll round this one up to a 9, because I like the mood this album creates overall, sure some of the songs run together due to the shared pulse and sometimes similar vocal cadences, but the whole package is pleasing to my ears and can be listened to over and over again.