You can’t beat a good murder ballad and even though the ‘hands around the throat’ in Christy & Emily’s Golden Rings are only dreamt, I’m reeled in by the darkness of the lyrics.

Superstition is far from a straightforward album. It covers some of the same ground musically as the previously featured Luxury Pond and Snowblink but with lyrics hinting at an impending sense of doom. ‘All that we built on the fault line will fall’ is the repeated refrain of Queen’s Head, while the album opens with the sky falling in on Chicken Little and there’s the aforementioned Golden Rings with the ‘face of evil’ and those ‘hands around the throat’ – and we’re only up to track 3.

This is a richly layered collection of songs which pretty much spans the entire modern folk horizon. Reverb heavy guitars bring a feel of Grizzly Bear and Beach House to songs like Lover’s Talk and Superstition while 105 & Rising throbs menacingly over an acid-fried slice of late sixties psych-folk. Chicken Little and Nightingale add balance through their simple beauty.

Robert Lloyd (yes, that Robert Lloyd) is releasing the album on his Big Print label. His claim that Christy & Emily are “the greatest band in the world” is pushing it, but they are definitely worthy of investigation.

…and you can investigate them here.