Incidentally, we’re finally gonna get round to reviewing “Firework” and “Poison” next week, so stay tuned for that…

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[4.30]

Martin Skidmore: Ethereal gothy indie trip-hoppy waffle.
[2]

Jer Fairall: The menacing instrumental swirl of the opening 0:30 promises something captivating, but there’s only so much that can be done with a song and a vocalist this violently melody-adverse. And they don’t do it.
[3]

John Seroff: Generigoth posturing that would like to pretend it’s closer to the menace of metal than the dated wheeze of industrial. Sadly, this is to metal what a dry, chapped-palm handjob is to a long-term relationship. Quit dying your hair, stop drinking tea, get your elbows up at shoulder height, get in the pit and go get a goddamned subscription to Decibel already, you fuckin’ hippie.
[2]

Mark Sinker: Collected in Andrew Lang’s Pink Fairy Book, “Esben and the Witch”, a Danish folktale, is categorised as type 327B (small boy defeats the ogre) in the Aarne-Thompson system of morphological grouping — grouping by motif rather than action. On the whole bands who name themselves by free-riding the titles of obscure critically acclaimed songs or records or books or films — second-hand imagination as unearned portal to prestige — are all useless rubbish, but actually if you’re let A Kiss in the Dreamhouse be the WHOLE of the sky of your chosen homeplanet, not such a bad idea to triangulate against it a bit.
[7]

Alex Macpherson: This is why I don’t mock witch house too much. At least it’s funny, with its ludicrous triangles and such. It could have been like this — an X Factor version of PJ Harvey over autogoth presets. It’s competent, but a PJ Harvey who doesn’t discomfit or unsettle in some way is a pointless one, and this is ever so boring.
[4]

Tom Ewing: Is it “the Witch” making spooky woo-woo noises at the end? I hope so! The thing about Goth, right, back in the day, is that it wasn’t just about chain-rattling atmos, they did bother to write songs sometimes too. That said, anyone who used up their Siouxsie Comparison Joker on Anna Calvi must be kicking themselves now, so this lot are getting the basics right at least.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: She’s neither underwater, hungover nor Hope Sandoval; I don’t get it. I suppose all this fuzziness is supposed to be eerie, but it’s more like the band stretched out some dryer lint to look like cobwebs and now won’t stop waving it in my face, whispering “boo”.
[5]

Frank Kogan: Ack! More horror-film shit. Dark guitar that’s too flimsy and jangly for menace, while a chanting singer wafts heavily through reverb like a brain-dead Siouxsie. Stupid stupid stupid. Kinda pretty, though, behind the gobbledygook.
[5]

Doug Robertson: It muddies its way along, clearly trying for some sort of atmosphere, but ultimately it’s about as disquieting as a hug from a Care Bear: unexpected, but hardly life changing and mainly just that little bit awkward.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Mystery, wonder, and buried female vocals — the eternal verities.
[5]