Released on: 24th August 2018
Mellow trip-hop intermingles with dark and sombre tones in a seductive package made to lure you out of your comfort zone. Or so the story goes. Songs From A Dead City is not anything new. And for anyone who has not been following the twenty odd year career of Baltimores’ Ego Likeness this release is a re-release from the original duos’ 1999 demo of the same name. Which holds up nicely against the many changes in delivery and production since.
In hindsight Songs From A Dead City could also be considered to be a kind of proto-Witch house record as the themes and tone symbolically translate into the now established genre. What with its murky production and lo-fi mix marking this as a clear product of forest blessed appraisals to Baphomet, or well at least the nineties. A time when Darkwave was the zeitgeist of genre attributions formulated first in the eighties. Whereas compared to now where it is just the ghost of an almost forgotten underground movement.
Music is mostly timeless. With its principles transcending notation and even time. Songs From A Dead City is an article of the gothic subculture that retains much of the core effects of ninties gothic and industrial. As it derives much from the earlier pioneers of the scene such as Skinny Puppy, Einstürzende Neubauten and Black Tape For A Blue Girl, with maybe a touch of Portishead and Massive Attack mixed in for good measure.
Time does go on and Ego Likeness have developed and improved upon the sentiments they set down on these now early recordings. The strong foundations for the groups career are clearly set here and these songs and demos are an interesting curiosity from days gone by.
7/10
