Holy Esque – At Hope’s Ravine

They’ve kept us waiting, but it's been worth it. At Hope’s Ravine is an assured jolt of broad-canvas, nouveau-post-punk pristineness: part-Twilight Sad, part-Bunnymen, and more than a shade of Simple Minds (back when they were any cop). Yes, it’s a polished, muscular record, and its detractors may point to a tendency toward the anthemic on tracks such as Doll House and Tear, but such is the intensity of Pat Hynes’ mottled, high-register vocals – eerily reminiscent of JJ72’s Mark Greaney, but somehow more desperate, more real – any complaint feels moot.

Both keyboard and wailing guitar paint big pictures (opening track Prism; recent single Hexx; the roof-lifting St.) – and they do so unapologetically, in charcoal shades of light and dark; it’s not until finale At Hope’s Ravine when the band perhaps lean in the direction of stadium rock girth a little too closely. But this is a sharp and quite possibly an important album, as memorable and considered as it is acerbic. Bravo.