★★★★

Mossy’s self-titled EP is a threat whispered with longing – a curse disguised as a platitude.

Beneath its shimmering surface, something dreaded patiently waits, and though the five tracks never outwardly project evil, they vaguely reek of it, like a corpse just starting to sour.

It’s this interplay between the uttered and the unspoken that gives the piece its power. The vague edge on romantic opener ‘Electric Chair’ proves transformative, turning what could have been a fairly run-of-the-mill slice of synthpop into something endearingly wretched.‘Waterfall’ stakes its claim in the same territory, and the Xanax-addled chorus is as oddly moving as it is eerie.

Yet most impressively, Mossynever allows the ethereal to become the unsubstantial. Jamie Timony, the man behind the moniker, has a fine ear for pop hooks, and the rigid, iron-ore melodies dotted throughout ‘Shipping Yard’are genuinely infectious. It’s commercial fare made as non-commercially as possible – a velvet glove cast in iron.

It’s pretty, and it’s piercing, and every one of its blows finds a new, softer patch of skin to rest on. It wants to hurt you. And before long you’ll realise that’s exactly what you want too.

Mossy by Mossyis out now through I Oh You.

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