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"As much as we raved about Troller's eponymous debut five years ago, this one is even better. The band posted a video for the albums' "Storm Maker" which is a beautiful swoon of an synth ballad harking to those emotive tracks that OMD sculpted early in their career. A lovely track to say the least, but the Siouxsie / Kate Bush allusions may be the siren call to draw unwitting listeners into the dark pit at the soul of this album. Snarled electronic death rock and synthetic industrial catharsis is found throughout the rest of Graphic, highlighted by the title track's Cranes-ish pummel of heaven and hell, "Sundowner" (a track of a Diamanda Galas theatricality affixed to what the whole witch house scene aspired to but failed in delivering while busy coming up with ascii symbol nomenclature), and the diabolically death-disco anthem "Torch" with its ice queen vocal crescendos and tense drum-machined inventions for the dungeon. Luridly alluring indeed, and recommended." - Aquariusrecords.org
After a nearly four year wait, this doom-laden darkwave outfit from Austin, TX has finally returned with the follow-up to their acclaimed eponymous debut. It was there that the band introduced their lush, lugubrious sound combining heavy synths, slow-motion rhythms and haunting vocal melodies, woven into infectious, brooding blasts of darkpop perfection; the songs seemed to emanate from some cavernous subterranean chamber, drenched in reverb and surrounded by shorter pieces of bleak ambience and grinding noise. A sinister, often abrasive edge gleamed from that early material, but it also featured some of the most stunning darkwave anthems we'd heard in ages. And with their first proper full-length album, Troller have expanded on that sound even further, their sensuous, dread-filled pop encrusted with those huge, otherworldly synths and distorted, grinding bass roar, rumbling across crawling drum machines and washes of glacial Carpenterian electronics, gorgeously gloomy synthpop hooks gleaming in the dimly lit corners of Graphic, as Amber Goers' soulful, utterly bewitching vocals once again haunt Troller's tenebrous depths. Songs like "Not Here", "Torch" and "Storm Maker" shimmer with a malevolent majesty, while elsewhere the album slips into nightmarish electronic ambience and stunning expanses of black kosmische bliss. And while the band's noisier tendencies are more subdued this time around, there are still surges of corrosive sound throughout Graphic that materialize in dense feedback and jagged chords that are juxtaposed with the album's more beautiful passages. Combined with their penchant for provocative imagery and apocalyptic undercurrents, this produces something far bleaker and more unsettling than anything else we're hearing in the realm of darkwave right now.
Crucial Blast is proud to present a CD and digital release of this striking new album from Troller, available as a digipak CD with different art than the vinyl, and digital download via our website. The LP/cassette versions on Holodeck can be found in our webstore at www.crucialblastshop.net .
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