Review:
Since first emerging under the name Demdike Stare on Modern Love back in 2009, Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker's project has provided listeners with a series of self-consciously dark and mysterious albums inspired by the occult (Demdike was a notorious 17th century witch). This fifth full-length - a double CD, no less - is as formidably creepy, intense and bloodthirsty as their previous outings and provides alternate takes -along with bonus material - of the tracks that appeared previously on a series of equally collectable twelve inches. While there are moments of fleeting beauty - see the gentle "Shades", bubbling echo-techno of "Metamorphasis" or sleepy ambience of "All This Is Ours (Sunrise)" - these merely serve to highlight the horror-fixated darkness and gothic soundscapes that abound throughout. Genuinely chilling, all told.