SOME WITCHERY

Just found out about UK neo-goth trio ESBEN AND THE WITCH from the pages of SPIN.

There's lots of 4AD in there mixed with The Cure and  loads of shoegaze, garnished with Joy Div and slacker pop and some entirely electronic  noodling that actually reminds me of a reigned in Primal Scream. -- and about 70 percent of the whole Projekt Records catalog The reverb-saturated girl vocals are a direct line to the swirly aerials of Elizabeth Fraser.

Always good. Now if I can only find a working torrent of their Violet Cries LP. Meantime, am loving the new single "Marching Song." The video is smart, brooding and obviously endeavored to be elegantly unpretentious (okay, and minimalist -- or maybe they really just had a limited budget). Never falls into mere gloomy arthouse posturing. And that's saying a lot because there's a lot of literary references and mythopoeic alluding going on here to keep even the most OC hipster digging through Wiki entries for a week. If that doesn't make them discover Joseph Campbell then we might as well let the machines take over now.

Talk about the effects of sonic injury.