Grey Gallows : "Strangers"

 The fourth album from this Greek dark wave band, finds them still going bump in the night. The vocals sit back in the shadows , as the haze of synths takes center stage. Yet another project that worships at Sisters of Mercy's altar. Chances are they are better than Sisters of Mercy live so good for them. They are wise to bring Kriistal Ann aboard for the third song as the addition of her voice, shifts the direction from the single shade of black they were draping the album in. Not that her voice is not hauntingly goth in it's own way, as it is, they just needed another sonic color to work with.

One thing this new generation of dark wave bands does well is wrap things up in a droning shroud. Here this is done , but also the drums are programmed in a manner that creates a drab pulse underneath things. They are true to the retro sounds without being a slave to them. We are however four songs into this album and have seven more to go ,so a lot hangs on how well they can switch  things up. They step away from the vision thing to get a more organic post-punk sound that is a step in that direction on "Lies" , though they are not bringing anything really new to the bat cave in this regard. They fall into the mire of expected genre tropes on  "Deafland"  so hoping they pull out of it. 

They get a hand from Incirrina to help them out of the mire. Her voice once again adds another dimension. Maybe the they need to bring aboard a female musician to expand from a duo. They return to the more familiar sounds that haunt the same places on the plodding "the Night in Me". The synths sound cool going into "'Chains" but cool synth sounds alone does not a good song make. The guitar adds more dimension to "In Eternity" but the inconsistent mix of this album does not allow two things to exist at once. The last track is more of an outro as it takes dramatic sounds and never commits to doing more than basking in their atmosphere. I will give this album an 8. I think it has some cool moments, with a better mix the vocals might have played more of the role I was listening for them to step into, but as things are they have great ideas and sounds that are crafted in a way revivalists will appreciate and there might even be listeners young enough to not know better, however they did aspire beyond the Sisters of Mercy altar the start of the album found them at and prove there is more to them than that,.