‘What do you know about common sense, what do you know about consequences, don’t try and tell me about satisfaction, when you’re talking, talking, talking, without any action’ (Never Reaching Heaven)

Bravo Brava is the debut release from Melbourne’s Promaja (a Balkan superstition that cold draughts carry evil spirits), featuring Jasmine Dunn of Pleasure Symbols and Bloodletter.  The album deftly mines the rich seam where the surging melancholy of post-punk intertwines with the more euphoric instincts of new wave.  Brightly crystalline guitar and swells of pulsing electronics evoke a deep sense of mournful uncertainty, one underpinned by resonantly coiling bass lines and crisply precise, cymbal awash drums.

A sultry, brooding atmosphere is evoked, one that swirlingly coalesces around Dunn’s strident, powerfully drawled vocals.  They inject a striking sense of drama, one equally steeped in gothic theatre and a keen pop sensibility, as they explore themes of isolation and anxiety.  From the bleakly infectious Diaspora to the emotionally charged Treading Water and Never Reaching Heaven, by way of Modern Silence’s stirring whispered build of ‘Do you ever think about it?’, Promaja subtly work in their claws and conjure a sense of foreboding that only the bite of an icy wind can bring.