Album Review: Anna Von Hausswolff - Dead Magic

Anna Von Hausswolff's latest quite brilliantly swirls towards a much darker shade of goth than her previous work.

Comprised of a cycle of five epic and ambitious songs, Dead Magic finds Von Hausswolff contemplating mortality with a series of intense dirges that have cosmic afterglow. The power and majesty of the pipe organ in Copenhagen's Marmorkirken makes its presence felt across this album. The organ evokes a sense of the sacred and eternal as Von Hausswolff skates on the edge of a dark and infinite void. Embracing the Vantablack of Von Hausswolff's musings, her band weaves complex orchestral arrangements around the instrument.

Often compared to Kate Bush, the wilder excesses of Von Hausswolff's performance on this album establishes her as a complete original. Under the dreamy veneer of The Truth, The Glow, The Fall there's a brooding ominous sense of dread. The Mysterious Vanishing Of Electra descends into a Spaghetti Western of bitterness and starts to slap us around with high priestess-like incantations in foreign tongues. Over 16 minutes Ugly And Vengeful bares its teeth as it evolves into a vicious storm with complete and utter destruction on its mind. Acting as a comedown, Kallans Ateruppstandelse despairingly drifts into outer space with neo-classical flourishes.

Bleak but delicately beautiful and otherworldly.