With their spectral sounds, Brass Box invites listeners to traverse the chthonic waves that ebb and flow between waking dreams. After a chance encounter within the liminal shades of a local bar, Ammo Bankoff (Tête, Black Flamingo) and Neil Popkin (War Tapes, Rituals) set out to distill the nocturnal effusions of a world in love with its own ghost. With guitarist Matt Bennett (War Tapes) and drummer Pablo Amador (Rituals), the quartet creates an interplay between the veils of life and death and at once situates the listener upon the precipice of chaos personified...

Brass Box release their new LP, The Cathedral, and from the PR puff above you'd be a bit of a weirdo to not be intrigued enough to want to give this one a listen. Obviously it's never going to live up to that sort of introduction, but for gothic dream indie music this ticks all the right boxes.

The album's 10 songs (38 min, 08 sec) wouldn't sound quite so otherworldly if it weren't for the fact it sounds like the album has been recorded in a deep underground cavern. The muffled reverb works well, even if on occasion it seems to be a little over cooked.

After over a month of listening to this, however, I still feel no closer to getting to know the album. I couldn't really pick out any songs that stood out over the rest and the end result is one trancelike feeling of constantly being in a dream I couldn't awaken from.

The band has an engaging and fairly original sound, but don't expect to be humming any of the songs any time soon.

6

Nick Smithson