When Esben and the Witch released their 2011 debut, Violet Cries, it aligned them with then-current goth pop (Zola Jesus, Austra, Chelsea Wolfe), and, as Jayson Greene concluded in his review of the album, "the cumulative impact [was] more tepid than bone-chilling." The Hexagons EP released later that year diluted the debut's hints of darkness even further. But the band's new album, Wash the Sins Not Only the Face, manages to transcend the band's cobwebby connotations. Here Esben and the Witch lean towards post-rock, which edges them in the direction of bands that are haunting without being specifically gothic, like Warpaint or Wild Beasts.
Singer Rachel Davies keeps within a narrower vocal range on this record, employing dense layering as a means of intensity. "I haven't drunk for days/ I'm heady with the haze/ I'm sinking," she sings on the hypnotic "Shimmering", where rattlesnake tail guitars shake over ride cymbals. The song is emblematic of the sustained tension that ebbs and flows over the course of Wash the Sins; "Slow Wave" never really reaches a specific precipice, but maintains a nervous edge thanks to its militaristic drum beat and the eerie sounds coming from Thomas Fisher's guitar.
That said, Wash the Sins isn't just a mood exercise. One of the shortest songs on the album, "Despair", where clawing guitars build to a vicious climax, is noticeably louder than anything they've done before. "When That Head Splits" has some bounce in its rhythm, and opener "Iceland Spar"'s initial seconds of silence are swiftly exploded by a spiky maelstrom-- a satisfyingly furious streak picked up in the appropriately named album closer, "Smashed to Pieces in the Still of the Night", where high-pitched, dissonant guitars riff out to a galloping, near-proggy conclusion.
But the end of the album slumps back toward the kind of drifty ambience found on Violet Cries: "Putting Down the Prey" moves lethargically through obtuse lyrics, foregoing any sense of structure to wallow in endless waves of washily textured guitar. On the spacious "The Fall of Glorieta Mountain", Davies asks, "Are you an answer/ Or are you an echo?" It's a reasonable question for a band that lacks a strong identify. Likewise, Wash the Sins is not a logical, concrete progression from Violet Cries and the Hexagons EP, but a competent if ultimately unmemorable reiteration of a message that wasn't particularly strong in the first place.
