Snow Ghosts are an exciting proposition, and even though electronic music has a surfeit of icy female wingers, the duo’s music easily holds its own on a debut album that brims with promise. Hannah Cartwright is the singer, and sometimes she sounds a bit like Billie Ray Martin, which is obviously a good thing, but crucially she sings these songs with conviction and finds the atmosphere in Ross Tones’ productions, which are incredibly well thought out and delivered. There is surprisingly brutal percussion in ‘Murder Cries’, which sounds out of kilter with the rest of the album but shows the duo are not afraid of experimentation and unpredictability. ‘Secret Garden’ is perhaps much more suited to her voice, and thoughtful with it, while the focussed intensity of ‘Gallows Strung’ and the latent power of ‘And The World Was Gone’ show them at their best. There are moments of horror film chic, if you like, and Covenant’s assertion that ‘I can still taste the blood in my mouth’ sends a cold shiver down the spine. Very intriguing, and definitely worth hearing.
4 out of 5
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood
