Maintaining an other-worldly cyber-darling nuance that, somehow, feels entirely innate, implies Evangelic Girl is a Gun is a bit of a risk – it accentuates humanity.
On Nat Ćmiel’s fourth album, styles perfected and popularised by subversive 90s acts – Massive Attack and Nine Inch Nails will spring to mind – provide the guidance needed to explore new soundscapes, encouraging the singer-songwriter to surpass all previous achievements. As for risk, Ćmiel is no stranger to defying boundaries – 2022’s Glitch Princess concluded with a four hour and 44 minute long ambient piece. Instrumentally, there’s nothing of the sort here. Evangelic Girl is a Gun is a swift paced, short but substantial listen that’s cool with a murky finish. The gamble comes from Ćmiel’s decision to record their sounds from scratch, “directly from the source or directed at the amp”, they explain, acting as a somewhat dichotomic backdrop for their fantastical lyricism to run free.
With artificial intelligence developing faster than most of us predicted, and rather deplorably infiltrating music at an alarming rate, Ćmiel has summoned a conscious objective to counteract it. There’s an increased power to their vocal performance, having made an effort to abandon most digital enhancement techniques that have become a staple of their work. Instead, prioritising unrefined, rough around the edge recordings, which wonderfully complement the record’s eerier cuts, as well as its sunnier moments. It's reassuring to hear an artist primarily focused on computerised aesthetics sounding just as great, if not better, wielding their inestimable skill set to revise a characteristic craft.
Aside from releasing a glitchy Broken Social Scene rendition for the soundtrack of Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw The TV Glow,
Ćmiel reappeared near the end of last year with “Eko”, an offering of
their own, which brims with vocal melodies so catchy they give the
highest charting songs a run for their money. A layered electro-pop-rock
success, the single revives the sorts of lyric excerpts that might pop
up across the charcoal grunge-embellished (and no doubt formative)
Tumblr blogs of the early 2010s. In fact, a fair few songs contain a
sharp universe within them. The album’s action-fueled namesake, for
instance, pulses with danger, like a ticking bomb operated through
precise engineering, burning with live wires just itching to set off a
satisfyingly heavy explosion of noise.
Ćmiel transforms one’s private, melancholic musings into
palpable, gothic electronica collages. They’re not one to dismiss their
demons, instead, they take the time to water them until they grow into
beings, or legends. Under the direct influence of painting, they’ve
noted how the art form is best at savouring what is naturally fleeting,
prolonging images derived from both internal and external occurrences.
When singing to, and on the behalf of, ghostly forces and spiritual
entities, the subjects of this record showcase their creator’s rich
imagination. Their stories gather from whispers and screams into an
everlasting portrait of Ćmiel’s innerworkings, mixing the colours that
separate author from character, and fostering Ćmiel’s open wounds by
allowing them to bleed all over their compositions.
A great deal of Ćmiel, the person rather than their
persona, feels veiled in mystery. The album’s closer, “Skullcrusher”,
acts as an apt farewell, until their next visit. Sprinklings of
trip-hop, shoegaze and sludgy metal rain down and into one another,
curating a short-lived thunderstorm, before hazy feedback sends yeule
away and into the ether once more.
