Last week I bought what might be just hands down the best album I've bought this year. It's Canadian outfit Austra's debut album, Feel It Break. I want to state immediately that it's probably one of the most emo albums I own, but once you get over the few scary Evanescence-references, you realize that this is one of the most prolific albums of electrogoth since The Knife defined the genre with Silent Shout in 2006.
Some tunes on this album work just marvelously. Take 'The Future', which merges an almost jazzy piano groove with a relentlessly funky bass line and Katie Stelmanis' mammoth voice into perhaps the album's strongest track. In general, the first four cuts are outstandingly good. The slow and tension-building 'Darken Her Horse' segues into lead single 'Lose It', one of the most accessible cuts, and also one of the few which really let Stelmanis lunge forward with the entire force of her vocal power, and 'Beat And The Pulse' at #4 is minacious and aggressive.
The rest of the album might not be of the same superior character as the first four tracks, but is still an utterly enjoyable listen, from the dark corners of 'Spellwork' to the crepuscular pathos of 'The Villain' and 'The Noise', through the drive and groove of 'Hate Crime' and 'Shoot The Water', eventually ending up with the delicious and very brave closer 'The Beast', which is boiled down to just a piano and Stelmanis' magnificent voice.
If you manage to curb your skepticism concerning the solemness, and if you manage to ignore that emo ever existed, this is a terrific album! And even if you don't, it's still worth a spin.
