This debut album features ten slow, deathly acoustic ballads from Irish duo Carol Anne McGowan and Tim V. Smyth.
There are nine original compositions plus a cover of Townes Van Zandt's The Velvet Voices which comes complete with choral backing.
The tunes maintain a leaden pace throughout and Smyth, who does most of the singing, sounds like a medicated Scott Walker or Richard Hawley.
McGowan chips in with haunted harmonies and takes on lead vocals on three tracks.
The prevailing mood is of aching sadness coupled with a general sense of weariness. With its downbeat quality and old timey feel there's something of Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings about the record but I can't help thinking the duo seem a little old beyond their years.
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In the photos they certainly don't look withered or ancient but in tracks like Empire Of Old, Wild Woe and the title song you'd think they were nearing the end of long, hard lives.
The relentlessly dejected mood becomes a little soporific and it's revealing that I initially misheard the lyric to Time To Go Back To Sea as 'it's time to go back to sleep'.
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