Angela Martyr - The November Harvest (2016)

Vanessa van Basten is dead, but this new industrial pop/drone/metal direction taken by mastermind Morgan Bellini is a more than fitting continuation. Never fully losing itself to the meandering affectations of shoegaze, the heavy, monotonous plod of industrial metal, or the sugar of pop, The November Harvest exists somewhere in the middle. Some might recognize melodic, post-rock inspired vestiges of Bellini’s prior pet project, but he appears to focus his creativity into crafting brief (mostly – the epic, thirteen-minute eponymous closer ventures into glorious, shimmering abstraction), infectious songs. Songcraft is an art which appears to be lost on the majority of new “art pop” artists, who generally prefer to revel in the eventuality of a growing, stagnant texture, and the more “pop” leanings of The November Harvest could very well herald a return to the championing of structure over size. I defy you to resist bobbing your head along to this one.