Honeytone Cody aren’t ones to hurry things, and this EP – their first release since last year’s ‘Radioactive Tease’ single – has had a lengthy gestation. Following numerous threats of its impending emergence, the ‘Witch Hunt EP’ is finally upon us, and it’s more than worth the wait.
‘White Queen’ begins with a thick, tearing bass sound, bolstered by the barrage of percussion that’s the trademark of their live show. If the musical elements capture and reproduce the sonic density of the live sound perfectly, then they’ve equally taken full advantage of the studio facilities, with Elle’s vocals surrounded in layers of reverb that wash around and overlap one another to disorientating, alienating effect.
In contrast, ‘Fat Kid’ is stripped back and sparse, haunting and eerily gothic in the way that Siouxsie and the Banshees and Skeletal Family when at their very best were haunting and eerily gothic, with a fractal guitar line that weaves a tripwire tension over the song’s skeletal frame. The theme of incinerating witches emerges in ‘The Death of Elsa Cloud’, which again sees the full-throttle live model paired back and abridged. The tribal drumming is still present, but more toned down and distant, cranking the misty atmospherics way up to eleven instead of the volume.
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It paves the way perfectly for the title track, which is utterly spine-chilling. It’s no cliché rehash of the cornball imagery favoured by the kids who think hanging around graveyards in long leather coats and black lipstick and ‘Twilight’ are cool, and is instead an eloquent and magnificently realised arch-gothic tour de force of swampy guitars, a battery of percussion and murky atmosphere. Beautifully brittle and absorbingly other-wordly, ‘Witch Hunt’ sees the band harnesses the maelstrom of noise with perfect poise.
Honeytone Cody aren’t just for Hallowe’en, but this EP makes for an ideal soundtrack.
Honeytone Cody Online
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