Esben and the Witch #8 - The Fall of Glorieta Mountain

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I've definitely not posted about Esben and the Witch here enough recently. One of the major pitfalls of running a new music blog amongst a full time job, family, running regimes and an active social life is spare time can be pretty sparse. By the very nature of this, I spend quite a vast majority of my free time writing/listening to new music so by default actually listening to all the albums from artists I've previously featured can be tough. It's pretty silly when you think about it - you spend all this time building up a band, saying how great they are etc and then promptly forget about them in favour of 'your new favourite thing' shortly after they finally release their album. C'est La Vie.

I return to the Brighton trio with a spine-tingling video to "The Fall of Glorieta Mountain", a gorgeous, softening track taken from January's full length Wash The Sins Not Only The Face, it showcases an intimate side to the band far removed from the imposing, hard-hitting drums and rallying cries that propel the likes of "Iceland Spar" or "Marching Song". Here Rachel Davies beautiful vocals are the centre point, shrouded in languid, glistening guitars whilst the odd bit of subtle sythns creep up on you with devastating impact.

I came across another track recorded for the same Bowlegs session, "Yellow Wood" which starts similarly restrained but is filled with a more typically 'Esben' sound, with ominous, claustrophobic soundscapes created by metronomic electronics, shimmering guitars and haunting, imposing vocals building and building to a climatic veil of darkness as Rachel's vocals turn to despair around a deafening crescendo of noise.

Two incredible live videos which will surely make the following sentence sound even better. Esben and the Witch are due to head out on a week long UK tour next month, including a date at London's The Lexington on October 7th (full dates).