Belgrave, Australia-based act Golem Dance Cult conjures an affecting sound on haunting single “Pretty at Dawn,” from their album Shamanic Faultlines. Featuring Inga Liljestrom’s ethereal vocals and Jean-Philippe Feiss’s ghostly cello, the track intertwines lonesome guitar, pulsing percussion, and cinematic strings. Reminiscent of The Auteurs and The Go-Betweens, the song traverses eerie, dark passages before returning to daylight-set bird chirps, crafting an immersive, atmospherically rich experience that fuses gothic rock sensibilities with lushly intriguing energy.
Lonesome guitar and bird-chirping combine with playfully lush rhythms for an inviting introduction, driving into a chilly vocal presence. “She’s so pretty at dawn,” the vocals let out amidst murmuring guitars and forlorn strings, venturing seamlessly into pulsing percussion and quivering vocal theatrics. The delectably eerie rock/pop intertwining reminds fondly of The Auteurs. “She’s slowly waking up, her lips so red,” the visceral lyricism continues to compel, also reminiscent of The Go-Betweens in their haunting, poetic ardor and string-laden, cinematic pull.
An especially riveting expanse shows after the two-minute turn, where bellowing strings and foreboding, zombie-like vocal movements venture into the finale — where the blissful, daytime-set bird-chirping returns following the invigoratingly dark processions that precede it. Melodically and atmospherically memorable, “Pretty at Dawn” is a stylishly enveloping success from Golem Dance Cult.
Stream Shamanic Faultlines in full:
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This and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
