« All Reviews   Esben and the Witch  Violet Cries  [Matador
Records; 2011]  By ; February 10, 2011    If there was ever a
band wrongly tarred as much as Esben and the Witch have been, I
have yet to hear about them, or indeed, hear them. Go to any
other site to get a description of the band or their debut
album, Violet Cries, and you’ll be greeted with by the word
“Goth” and usually after that you will come across the word
“Revival.” Maybe it is because they have “Witch” in their name,
maybe it’s the echo on the vocals, it could even be something
else. Whatever that “it” is, it does the band a great
disservice. Esben and the Witch are far, far more than just a
Goth revival band, just as much at home in electronic glitches
and whirls as they are in reverb drenched atmospheric pieces.
Opener “Argyria” is nothing less than a sonic assault; a
brooding piece of music that slowly builds until it blossoms
into an explosion of cacophonous guitars and expertly placed
electronic twitches that suddenly stops to reveal a