Mother of God - I'm sure the previous one came out about three weeks ago, but whatever the case may be, the lad is quite clearly on a roll. Isolation continues on the trajectory begun with Darkness is Home then The Misanthrope with improvements here and there, greater confidence in the vocal department, sharper mixing or whatever. It's difficult to quite say what sets this one apart from the other two, but there's something for sure, and even as Kevin Thorne continues to work with what might seem like a restricted musical palate, he's kept it sounding fresh, very much like a new thing each time another album comes out of the gate. As before, it's mostly drums, bass, and vocals - driving songs, or maybe grooves with some distant kinship to Joy Division or maybe Suicide or Chrome - particularly Into the Eyes of the Zombie King - but not entirely like any of the above. The wall of bass - everything here is played on four strings - is such that it's taken me three albums to really notice what's going on with the percussion, and although it isn't a main feature, this material would be the poorer with just a Doctor Rhythm ticking away in the background. I assume the percussion is programmed but it somehow doesn't quite feel like it, and has an almost John Bonham sense of presence in so much as that it pounds and is doing more than just keep time. One might expect an album called Isolation to sound pretty miserable, particularly when it's the follow up to one called The Misanthrope, but it's actually quite difficult to describe how this album makes me feel - sad, sort of wistful, not actually unhappy, and yet kind of warmed by the cinematic wash of emotion. I know I probably said the previous one was the best yet, but it could actually be this one.
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