Fear of Comedy - Delapsus Resurgam

It's been a while since this curiously compelling album made its way into my life. Long enough now for me to put a few words together to describe why I have been listening to this album. A lot.

Fear of Comedy have been described as a band of recovering goths, a group whose ever evolving line up seems to have changed more often than their guitar strings. But their contribution to the darker reaches of alt-rock is an impressive union of gritty melancholy and cinematic majesty. The music is slow and atmospheric, with rock-based grit dominating a desaturated backdrop of atmospheric splendour. The guitars are ponderous but assured, crackling with valve static and lending the whole album the tight but hazily chaotic feeling of a live recording.

The track "From Ashes" may well describe the band's decision to metaphorically destroy everything that they had ever written before recording this album. The opening guitar arpeggios are glassy, foreboding. It's a fine prelude to singer Laith Tierney's hot-blooded vocals assailing the listener from the furthest reaches of the stereo field. His delivery is impassioned, almost fanatical in its fervour, and one of the pivotal elements in raising this act well above what one would expect from the genre. The vocal lines are often double tracked with wildly panned voices that form an almost choral effect, adding a deliciously disconcerting edge to the record.

The gothic rock influences come starkly to the foreground in the track "Hymn", with menacing power chords driving the music towards relentlessly towering crescendos. The guitars are drenched in effects, giving a swirling, shimmering edge to the grim proceedings.

"Chronos" is a grand neofolk vision, perhaps sitting somewhere between the zeal of Nick Cave's "No More Shall We Part" and Rome's epic dystopian vista "Hell Money". It's the kind of piece that I'd pick for a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack: one part whiskey-soaked swagger, the other a pensive southern gothic soundscape.

For those of you who aren't in Australia, this recording is probably about as close as you'll get to experiencing the impassioned live shows that these guys perform. It's a sound born from the most isolated city in the world, a music scene whose incestuous nature is only rarely broken by the occasional band fleeing from Perth to the bright lights and fly-by-night promises of Melbourne or London. It's not often that I have the chance to write about a band so close to home, and even better that I can highly recommend their latest release to our international readers. Oct 21 2013