It begins with a surly glimmer in the still, heavy darkness. Like Nick Cave observing his own brow furrowing in a small mirror, lit by soft candlelight, surrounded by acres of black. The fringes of this image are charred slightly, worn away like the spine of a well-thumbed, handed-down volume, and such a respectful impression gives it an air of classicism. This is an overwhelming display of capability for the mere opening moments of a debut album. And then the wise, anguished solitude is blown clean apart, like the atom being split with a violin bow, and everything is thrown into an even wider and more bewildering perspective. The sound of an angry Irish voice sharpened by years of maltreatment and probably very recent hours of dedicated alcohol abuse erupts over momentum-gaining drums. Then deliverance arrives, like Godspeed You Black Emperor breaking through the fire and brimstone to beat on the door of Hades and demand answers. This epic couldn’t be contained in widescreen.
There is so very much going on within this record, and coming from so many different angles. It’s like an argument you just can’t think of a return for. It’s an adventure in sub-industrial Celtic post-folk, if that’s what we should call it. It’s really rather an overspill of primeval emotions, left to ferment and mature. It’s fiercely pungent, and yet so beautifully articulated, so lovingly crafted. Or if not love, then something equally as pure. ‘All The People Now’ takes ADF and shorts them before putting them to earth. ‘Hope This Day’ and ‘Everyday’ are pure Nick Cave sometimes emoted by a male Enya under apocalyptic conditions, and ‘All That You’ve Ever Known’ mixes things up deeper like a potent cocktail of Killing Joke, Dreadzone and the Bad Seed’s most heady ingredients. As unconvincing as these descriptions may seem they’re only a way of trying to pin down what’s going on here. As fresh as it is devastating.