Mothlite – Dark Age

Daniel O'Sullivan's acclaimed Ulver has a tendency to traverse a truly abstract path between the realms of shoegaze, metal and black ambient, while his collaboration with Steve Moore, Miracle, remains firmly rooted in the universe of synth-pop. His solo Mothlite moniker makes eerily effective work of hybridising the disparate styles of these two projects, landing somewhere not far from the majestic highs and lows of Talk Talk's The Colour of Spring.

With his second album under the guise, O'Sullivan makes a sustained effort to sing from the stomach out, minimally affecting his pitch, which is perfect for the overdubbed goth-pop harmonies that suit this type of music (nowhere are his warm choruses more prominent than on the title track). To imagine Tears for Fears' Roland Orzabal singing with The Big Pink could have been a suitable comparison, but would do a disservice to the lush layers of ambient beats, tribal drums and keyboard arpeggios that O'Sullivan uniquely fuses.