Daniel Woolhouse’s follow-up to last year’sLife After Defocatches him in a new phase of his life, but the honeymoon bliss of a new marriage is not easily detected on new albumSongs. Joy simply doesn’t fit with Deptford Goth’s aesthetic.
‘The Lovers’ is the one song that embraces this subject, but its glassy-eyed observations are hardly revealing: “We make babies, watch them grow, teach them what we know and then let them go / Love your mother, love your father, one position is another”.
The music of Deptford Goth is slow-burning minimalism and it’s pared back even further for the songcraft focus of this particular album, but there are some quietly effective shifts in tone and pace. Percussion drags its heels behind everything else in ‘The Lovers’ and ‘The Circle’, adding to their sluggish, sedated effect; in contrast, sharply plucked harp attempts to quicken the anxious circular motions of ‘The Loop’. Meanwhile, Woolhouse’s hypnotic murmur of a vocal is pushed to the forefront, ensuring maximum intimacy.
Towards the end of the album, we get a less forlorn turn in the delicately romantic ‘Two Hearts’ – it offers a glimmer of hope that things might turn out alright in the end, after all.
3.5/5.
Songs is out now through 37 Adventures/[PIAS].
