ALBUM: Winter Villains 'Once There Were Sparks, Now There Are Ashes'

Rating:

Two years into their musical journey, Cardiff chamber pop duo Winter Villains are releasing their second album, Once There Were Spark, Now There Are Ashes, following in their broad and unearthly style. This album brings with it a whole other bizarre and gaudy universe filled with strange and wonderful things. Sometimes this strange approach is intoxicating but in many places, however, it feels lost and out of place.

The lyrics themselves feel overlooked in this album, in favour for the overarching character of each track and the emotional place to which we are to be taken. ‘Empire’, the album’s first single, provides a detached and regal mood to fit with the refined lyrics and perpetual rhythm. From decadent obscurity to child-like nostalgia, the broken chords and disjointed lyrics of ‘Hunters’ is reminiscent of playground rhymes and rose-tinted youth.

Sadly, outside these tracks, the album can feel a little repetitive. A steady build of synth strings, broken piano chords and tiny percussion are a persistent feature, causing much of the album to blend together. It’s hard to gain individual impressions of many of the tracks when they so seamlessly merge into the next.

The cleverness of Winter Villians does show, however, in the two part spectacular ‘So The Battle Begins’ and ‘We Lost Our Children In The Depths Of The Forest’. Both build an electronic sci-fi feel and lead us into a fantasy land, with tinny percussion and storybook lyrics. The former creates a feel of battle with metallic machine-like sounds, and the latter visualizes nature with twinkling synths and tinkling xylophone. Between them, these songs sound like the soundtrack from an artsy animated film and are intensely intriguing to experience.

In full, this album feels a little disjointed and lost in places. Its creative brilliance appears in dribs and drabs between overly long intros and bridges. There is a lot of unnecessary excess that could have been cut away to allow Winter Villains’ best bits to shine through. Regardless, this album has a soothing and ethereal sound that is a rare gem in music.

Once There Were Sparks, Now There Are Ashes is out now via Owlet Music.