Esben & The Witch – 33 (EP)

I’ve come across Esben & The Witch before and appreciated what they do, but I’ve never taken the time to fully engage with their output. First impressions are good. ‘Eumenides’ is delicate and layered, inviting instant comparisons with Bat For Lashes and Björk. It’s pretty much what I was expecting, but just as I’m getting ready to pigeonhole them, ‘Marching Song’ confounds my expectations. It’s a brooding, intense soundscape with a much harder edge and if I’m going to keep invoking band names I realise that I’ll need to add Siouxsie And the Banshees, Xiu Xiu and possibly even Joy Division into the mix.
It’s clear that whoever writes the lyrics is a voracious reader; references to Greek mythology abound. In fact, the more I listen to this EP the more I want to compare it to literature rather than music. Its claustrophobic, unsettling atmosphere is reminiscent of Alan Garner’s The Owl Service, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and even Horace Walpole’s The Castle Of Otranto (the original Gothic novel). Indeed, if music ever fancies reclaiming the G-word from the crimped hair and black eyeliner brigade, ‘About This Peninsula’ and ‘Corridors’ would be fine demonstrations of how it should be done.
The nine-minute twilight voyage of ‘Corridors’ is the final conclusive proof that my lazy preconceptions of this band have been irrevocably shattered. This is about as far from ethereal, quirky pop as it’s possible to get: a majestic, clattering sonic nightmare that ebbs and flows, swelling like a black river ready to burst its banks, receding at the point of maximum intensity. If we must find and articulate Esben & The Witch’s peers, only the bleak, scorched visions of S.C.U.M. would spring to mind. But then, who needs peers when you’re capable of producing something as singularly arresting as this?
This review was written in June and originally published in DrunkenWerewolf issue 8 in August. DrunkenWerewolf is published bi-monthly and covers new and unusual acts who operate in a roughly acoustic/indie/experimental vein. I’ll be interviewing Esben & The Witch for DW issue 9, due out in October.