Obviously anything Angel Olsen touches these days is worth your time but how is the rest of the new Lionlimb album? That's what I was asking too before I played Limbo. Thankfully, the Stewart Bronaugh-fronted project offers up something moderately engaging here in Limbo.
Opener "Sun" works up a well-produced churn, even as the catchier "Hurricane" stands as a nice updating of synth-pop forms. Lionlimb owe debts to the Eighties, but also fairly recent groups like Air and Gardens & Villa, though there's more invention in the works of those acts.
There's a sameness here that gives the album a uniformity broken up dramatically by the Angel Olsen collaboration. As it stands, "Dream of You" is a superb single. Blending the same kind of future retro influences Portishead once mined, Stewart Bronaugh gives Angel's voice a rich backing. I'd love to hear more of this rather than some of the more bloodless offerings elsewhere on Limbo. This individual track proves that there's a way to mix Bronaugh's preferred style with a warm vocal performance, and I just wish there were other tracks here that did that. There's no denying that the rest of Limbo, while serviceable, is a big comedown after that Angel Olsen collab.
Limbo by Lionlimb is out now via Bayonet Records.
[Photo: Steph Rinzler]