‘Each morning you kneel, At the altar of fate, Without the company misery generates, Providing you, Their tools to sharpen, Whored out to sow, Their dark garden’ (The Dark Garden)

Los Angeles is a city of erasure, where the myths of economic boosterism have repeatedly sought to reshape it for the benefit of the few.  The result is a city where the scripted and sanitised still seek to block out the communities that form its heart, where a polarising divide between wealth and poverty is still entrenched.  This album is an ode to the strength of those communities to both survive and subvert.  A resolution that is now needed more than ever.

Cemento have been honing their gothic shrouded post-punk on a series of cassette-only releases before this, their debut album.  All of the fundamentals that this would imply – the baritone vocals, the soaring melancholy – are firmly in place.  Yet it is the accents and flourishes that Cemento nurture that imbue Bad Dream Songs with its thoroughly distinctive, darkly entrancing atmosphere.

The vocals that gently lean into their power yielding a drawled yet nuanced cadence.  The rhythm guitars that are taut with fuzzed out discordance.  The bottom end that brings a propulsive, loose-limbed swing.  And the dancing, mournful guitar leads that segue into vibrantly escalating solos draped in their own melancholic majesty.

It proves a powerfully evocative blend.  The shimmering opening to Better Days lures you inexorably into their bleakly euphoric reverie.  It is a grip that never eases from the bleakly infectious Black River to the bass fuelled On The Lord’s Day, and the chiming desolation of the title track.