“The New Eve has learned to scream/to stand straight, to sing, to speak,” the album opens up amidst a haunting violin, deep cello, and running bass line. The New Eves aren’t concerned with pulling any punches. They get to the point. They’ve learned to capture the inner frustrations of modern womanhood with the chaotic imagery of 19th century rural paganism. Aligning themselves with late 19th century literature and technicolor avant-garde cinema, with lyrics combining elements from romantic poetry and religious hymns. The New Eves is just as much their music as they are their presentation.
The group came together during several chance encounters throughout Brighton’s music and art community. Once united, they instinctively knew what they had to do. “It was like everyone in the room said ‘I really want to be in a band again’” guitarist and cellist Nina Winder-Lind said in an interview. The New Eves formed through sheer impulse. In a way, this primordial instinct is accurately reflected in The New Eve Is Rising.
At times an avant-folk rumination and free form post punk nonsense, The New Eve Is Rising is a seemingly random amalgamation of arrangements that just so happen to find themselves together. Each track ventures into its own path as though an aimless observer wading through its own literary canon. The DIY instrumentation on “Highway Man” sees Lind’s quivering vocals stripped of any vocal modulation. They are naked as though a satanic seance in a desolate forest.
The track dissolves into an anxious guitar solo, further amplified by the group’s ritualistic chanting until Violet Farrer’s screeching violin brings the track into a sudden halt. “Mary” begins as a lackadaisical folk ballad until slowly building into a cacophony of pianos, shaking violins, pounding drums, and screeching vocals. But it’s tracks like “Cow Song” that gives the album its refreshing sound. The single is a post punk track if its desolate atmosphere was instead a 19th century pagan farmhouse. The track marches through syncopated drums until picking up speed. Dissonant violins sway on top of a funky bassline until the track transforms into a hymn-like melody.
Despite living in its own environment, The New Eve Is Rising sprinkles its influences like a game of iSpy. Lind’s spoken word-like delivery on “Mid Air Glass” is Lou Reed at his most serene. Tremolo violins make up a majority of the instrumental, bringing images of a rural English countryside laden with cattle, handmade dresses, and a forest just out of reach. The reverberated guitars on “Rivers Run Red” bring a similar lightness like that of Stereolab. Ella Oona Russell’s fluid yet staccato flute glides the track into a groovy funk as dripping pianos grow increasingly dissonate. Then, as the track is on the verge of erupting, it quells into a catchy four-on-the-floor beat, with the group riding Kate Mager’s glossy bass into the distance.
Rather than ride what’s already being done, The New Eves paint an eclectic path with their own signature oddities. Maybe it’s their unique selection of instruments that give each track its own distinct visual, but it’s hard to imagine anyone other than The New Eves writing something as magnetic as “Astrolabe.” The instrumental flirts between a post-rock croon and a neoclassical folk ballad. The grandeur of their unison vocals evokes images of an army marching over a hill and into the horizon. The eight-minute closer “Volcano” is akin to the newfound British post-rock movement that has slowly engulfed the music sphere. A sliding bass line lays the foundation for layers of woodwinds, strings, and Lind’s vocals to glide around. Sparse drums break the silence, spiraling the band into a whirlwind of chaos before slowly coming back around. The volcano has erupted. The lava is slowly oozing out. Its visible heat is out in the open, and it’s too late to put it back in.
“Circles” opens with a lull. A calmly muted poem wanes as Russell’s thundering drums steps on the gas, with their angry fueled rant culminating into a pounding rhythm section. “I am not your woman,” they sing as every member vents their frustrations in a tornado of emotions. If opener “The New Eve” is their manifesto, then “Circles” is them putting it into practice. The New Eves understand that they’re screaming into the void. They understand their tornado of clashing vocals may come off rather manic and unproductive. But The New Eves aren’t interested in what’s being said. The New Eve Is Rising explores the possibility that maybe, freedom lies in our ability to scream into the void. As the track drifts into another soft refrain, their voices continue to echo long after it has been said: “No, I am not crazy, I am alive.”
The New Eve Is Rising is out on Transgressive Records.
