Labels: Southern Lord
Review by: Alex Deller
‘Au De La’ is a strange but powerful thing, hewn of two guitars, a drumkit and a dolorous voice, courtesy of Robbin Wattie, that fits somewhere between Bjork and PJ Harvey. Rather than clearly delineated riffs the band craft enormous, crystal-shaped things through which light refracts and vision is distorted. These sometimes exist in quiet isolation and sometimes collide with graceful brutishness. Feedback spiders its way between the cracks, and Wattie coos, croons and howls depending on what the occasion demands. Space is used as a device to be handled carefully and only filled when there is the utmost need. The results are pristine, glacial and, it has to be said, really rather startling.