Deptford Goth - Songs
- Written by Carris Boast
South London’s Daniel Woolhouse (aka Deptford Goth) has taken his time to make sense of the difficult woes that come with producing a follow up to his well received debut Life After Defo. Integrating distant mixes of off-white silences, entwined with a confident voice, lays Woolhouse bare giving an honest portrayal on love in his new album Songs.
Woolhouse's voice is more predominate throughout this album and allows it to break and crack in parts which make each track sound more sincere. In ‘A Circle’ and ‘The Loop’, his voice sits comfortably on top of abstract soundscapes. This boldly isolates the sounds, which gives a sort of sodden overtone to an already dejected setting. Textually the instrumental backing falls from piano accompaniment and synthetic chimes into a pool of jumbled synthesis.
The album swims through this pool, bumping into random scales and rings without purpose. It is like it lacks direction, calling the album Songs could add to this confusion. Like a misunderstood adolescent its appearance is bleached with a black, artificial colour. The songs become moody and downtrodden, shown through the detachment of instrumentals and crowing solos in ‘Dust’. This said, lyrically it appears to be sweet and naive. “Love, love is enough” taken from ‘Two Hearts’ and “I fell down, things all look bad to me” from track ‘We Symbolise’ are prime examples.
Disappointingly the songs on this album flake away and have regressed into something more content with being merely background music without reaching the heights expected after album number one.
This said it is not a bad album. It provides a delicate soundtrack for those peaceful moments; a calm tonic for de-stressing in a large white tub. A melodic cascade of sentiment can be found in tracks such as ‘The Lovers’ and ‘A Shelter, A Weapon’. Yet this album is not so different from what the industry has seen before. Deptford Goth at the moment seems to be following behind artists such as The XX, Chet Faker and James Blake and unfortunately it may take a little more than Songs to catch up with them.