United in matrimony and music, Brooklyn-based duo Devon Church and Aleksa Palladino embrace their Radiohead-inspired name in sound and sentiment. Their debut album proper quivers and quakes with the cinematic electronics and emotional abandonment of a soundtrack to Armageddon. But for all its bleak, dark fissures, bright and tender lights serenely burst out with hope. Opening title-track and ‘The City’ flicker like lit candles, before burning bright at their core of ruinous drums and Palladino’s femme fatale vocal. ‘The Modern Age’ blossoms as a pop noir anthem, while the ruminating close of ‘Sparks Of Light’ sedates its final stirring throes.
Thomas A Ward