‘The promise of life, the promise of good, What you’ve done and what you should, It’s better than most, it’s one not both’ (Pig Dream)

Joke In The Shadow is an album of intrinsic, intriguing contrasts.  On the one hand, it surges with an arresting sense of gothic drama and, on the other, its musical palette is defined by a stripped back austerity.  The drama is courtesy of the powerfully compelling, plaintively evocative vocals that are shrouded in a sense of unyielding dread.  These are then interwoven with the sparsely assembled tableau of warmly swelling synths, shards of lean guitar, flares of saxophone, and understated loops of electronic percussion.

This is the Ohio band’s second album and follows an extended hiatus after the release of their 2018 debut, Channels.  They deliver their deftly constructed blend of post-punk melancholy and the more uplifting swing of 1980s’ new wave to darkly mesmerising effect.  This juxta posing is similarly reflected in the lyrical expressions of grief at our current malaise of late-stage capitalist exploitation and extraction, with a tentative, speculative hope that the future that we fear is not yet inevitable.  The shimmering enticement of opener Pig Dream is pitch perfect, with the bleakly contagious Serve The End and the hauntingly hypnotic Reverser ensuring that the spell never relents.