Album Review: Older Terrors by Esben and the Witch

It feels tired to keep opening reviews with this line, but the world is going to shit, folks. It is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions. Old Testament, dear readers, real wrath of God type stuff. Politicians deciding to send bombs down from the skies! Forty years of Tory rule! Austerity, benefits cuts! Presidential candidates accusing voters of rising from the grave! The Labour Party being sacrificed, dogs and cats living together: mass hysteria! Sometimes we need a distraction.

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As one of the UK’s most consistent, uncompromising rock groups, whose work has always essentially operated in distinct separation to the indie trends with whom they have occasionally threatened to superficially intersect, Esben and the Witch seem to become more compelling with each passing year. Gratuitous users of the immense, monolithic sonic power of which they seem so effortlessly capable, perhaps the most amazing thing about EATW is their ability to exercise that power in subtly different, progressively more incisive ways on each release. Since announcing themselves with the elliptical goth of their debut LP, Violet Cries, the Brighton trio have grown ever more muscular, intense and purposeful, yet this development has not been achieved by simply becoming louder, heavier or more technically complex.

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Esben & the Witch radically reframed their music on A New Nature, stripping their sound to a sinewy minimalism and expanding their songs with newfound confidence. Its starkness felt necessary, and though the band brings more color and atmosphere to Older Terrors, that spirit of bold reinvention continues. Recorded in their adopted hometown of Berlin, their fourth album consists of four epic-length songs.

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There’s something appealing about things which have a fucked up scale. Big things which are small. Small things which are big. Short things that are long. Long things that are… Well. You get the idea. So Esben And The Witch’s treatment of tracks on new album Older Terrors gives it a boost ….

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