#nightmare on elmfield road

[horroradore]

[getslower]

CLOVES - NIGHTMARE ON ELMFIELD ROAD

[lunapaper]

Album Review: 'Nightmare on Elmfield Road' - CLOVES

CLOVES’ latest album is a horror show.

Stripping away the bluesy rocks and California vibes of 2018 debut One Big Nothing, the Melbourne-born singer (aka Kaity Dunstan) makes a dark descent into smoky trip hop and distortion on Nightmare on Elmfield Road, produced while she was in the midst of a ‘mental health journey.’

‘Before this album I had never worked to try and understand myself and how I process thoughts and emotions,’ Dunstan explains via press release. ‘Instead, I had always turned to coping mechanisms and was defensive of help, it became debilitating, I was unable to compartmentalise a real threat from a poisonous train of thought, this record is purely made from necessity, it’s taking all my darkest thoughts and feelings I have about myself and saying them, it's the start of taking their power away.’

Like any true cyber pop dystopia, the record is sleek and cold to the touch, throbbing with plenty of bass and industrial synths, along with blunt, one-word song titles to further drive the point home.

‘DEAD’ is eerie and brooding with a synthetic feel as Dunstan plays Russian roulette with her greatest enemy (i.e. herself), offering up goth pop-worthy lines like: My suffering isn't over with baby, pacify me/I'm alone and I'm playing roulette with my enemy/Relaxation is strangulation/My minds been fucked, mental fornication.’ ‘SICKO’ is slinky and enigmatic, interpolating Suzanne Vega’s 1987 classic ‘ Tom’s Diner’ as the singer finds herself ‘In the corner, on the outside/Lookin' in, I see a sicko.’ ‘MANIC,’ meanwhile, unravels at an erratic pace, reminiscent of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ with distorted guitar, haunting minor keys and disembodied sound bites.

‘NIGHTMARE,’ of course, lives up to its name, a frightening paranoia trip about ‘being gaslit by your own brain,’ channelling Portishead’s ‘Glory Box’ right down to Beth Gibbons’ aching vocals. But even as she’s being dragged further into the abyss, Dunstan goes down swinging (‘You're a nightmare/'Cause you're not what you said you are (No, oh, no)/And I get angry/'Cause you know what you really are...’)

By album’s end, Dunstan makes the full transition into a ‘Beast’ in time for ‘heartbreak hour,’ unrepentant in bringing others down into the pits of despair; her self-destruction now complete - ‘I’m the only one/That’ll wish you well/Then do you harm/And give you hell.’

Working with a stellar line-up of that includes Clarence "Coffee" Jr (Dua Lipa) and Detonate (Sia, Diplo), Hudson Mohawke and Jake Portrait from Unknown Mortal Orchestra, CLOVES gives her ghostly, claustrophobic sound structures and brutal self-loathing a cinematic touch, evoking classic 80s and 90s sci-fi and horror imagery.

Although a little repetitive at times (like trip hop can be, as much as I love it), Nightmare on Elmfield Road is a solid effort from an artist still coming into her own, one that doesn’t receive nearly enough credit in her own country or even her home city (I should know, I live in Melbourne).

Hopefully this will be the album to change that...

- Bianca B.

[matteohudson]

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