Info: Ex-Isles is a new collaboration between Belfast based singer-songwriter Peter Devlin and composer James Joys. Having worked together on various projects, the pair decided to explore their distinctive take on pop music on their return to Belfast, after 15 years living away. The result is ‘Luxury Mass’; their debut album, swooning with darkness and humour, filled with harmonic twists, lyrical wit, and rhythmic slips, all held together by Devlin’s rich, crooning baritone. Their brooding sound gives a nod to enigmatic pop figures like Scott Walker, David Sylvian, John Grant, ANOHNI, and late-era David Bowie; expertly carried out by Joys’s arrangements and production.
The opening bars of 'Blackened Shores' are immediately engaging and draw you in to a grandiose and mysterious place. Belfast duo Ex-Isles' influences are certainly worn on their sleeve on album Luxury Mass, in particular Scott Walker and John Grant, the album feeling like a reworking of the former's Scott 3 by the latter. The atmospherics are deep on the first track, cold, bleak, yet hauntingly beautiful with science-fiction levels of expanse.
A pained tenderness presents itself on 'Arrival', free-flowing piano acts like a sad beckoning, asking us to follow but not really caring if we do or not, there's a sharp sense of hopelessness here that is very vivid. A little bit of light begins to peak through on 'The Mourning Tide', like the embers of last night's fire the piano is warmer, the harmonies take on an almost Gregorian hue before suddenly fading.
'Run to the Porcelain Hills' initially fills the sonic plains like a bellowing smoke, its first two minutes are decidedly nightmarish, the following vocal solo moves us into ancient places, a past that never really existed. Again Ex-Isles indulge us with another sequence of heightened operatic grandeur, it could almost be the grand finale but there's still more to come.
The discomfort of 'Run to the Porcelain Hills' is acutely revived on the warped opening of 'Wednesday's Child', even the title hints at a ghoulish entity, Children of the Corn, The Omen and of course The Adams Family for obvious reasons! spring to mind. The pairs subtle electronic strains lead to a break before the track dives deep into sombre and sobering strings, suddenly it's winter again.
'On the Linen on the Skin' is a very interesting moment on Luxury Mass, I immediately connected the dots to Elton John's sophomore self-titled album, in particular his trscks 'First Episode At Hienton' and 'The Greatest Discovery', yet here it's more like a subdued and low-key version of the sound aimed for on that album. Towards the end of the album Devlin and Joys make one last push to present us with a sparkle of hope and beauty in the form of 'The Visitor', comfort is drawn from the deep vocal tones and gentle piano. Not ones to sit on their laurels, the track inevitably soars to dramatic heights, conjuring up an image of the two of them in an old 19th century theatre, alone on the stage but playing for their lives.
Luxury Mass is an album that will require repeated listens to fully appreciate, like the plot of a great novel, you feel Ex-Isles have left many hidden meanings and messages scattered across its 50-odd minutes. It's the type of challenge I enjoy rising to, I don't always want my music served on a platter of instantaneous meaning. That said, perhaps the most obvious trait of this record is the musical and lyrical talent of the two artists which you can notice immediately, and which, thankfully they decided to combine to create something unique.
Look / Like / Listen & Follow:
Website: https://www.ex-isles.eu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ExIsles/
Bandcamp: https://ex-isles.bandcamp.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ex_Isles_
