Album Review: Empath - 'Visitor'

Philadelphia noise-rockers Empath return with sophomore album Visitor, the follow-up to 2019’s Active Listening: Nights On Earth. The quartet, it transpires, are still mining idiosyncratic lo-fi terrain. Opener ‘Genius Of Evil’ makes for a cracking start, the heavy drums gradually joining forces with cacophonous guitars.

Elsewhere, singles ‘Born 100 Times’ and ‘Diamond Eyelids’ prove to be standouts. Notably, the swirling guitars are topped off with Catherine Elicson’s mysterious style of beat poetry: “Tell me we create love in absence/ While diamonds form from your eyelids.” There are also flickers of unusual samples and sound clips, from door-hinges and birds (‘Passing Stranger’) to sci-fi soundtracks (‘V’, ‘Paradise’). ‘Corner Of Surprise’, meanwhile, has an element of Rocky Horror Picture Show in its rockabilly pacing. Visitor is otherworldly, chaotic and energised – totally sui generis.

7/10
Listen: ‘80s’

Out now via Fat Possum Records: