Less self-conscious and more organic than 2001 debut Indian Ink, My Elixir (recorded in a summer barn while MBICR were homeless) eschews the artsy, antsy blasts of sudden guitar squall for a more measured?though no less disturbing?trawl through gothic psychosis. Despite the sex, blades and blood-clotted imagery, the quietly propulsive banks of piano, keyboards and horns are both morbidly beautiful and utterly engrossing, fetching up somewhere between This Mortal Coil, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Movietone, while singer Emily Gray exudes all the clipped English bile of Black Box Recorder’s Sarah Nixey.
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