It’s quite a technically accurate description for , however. Depending on where the needle is dropped, Philadelphia-based duo @ (pronounced "at", obviously, and nearly impossible to search for) not infrequently sound like an indie-rock outfit who have become evangelical about the sparse directness of folk, or an earthy psych-folk duo healthily curious about rock band dynamics.
As such, Victoria Rose and Stone Filipczak operate in a fairly crowded market, but the uniquely pitched songwriting of the two multi-instrumentalists helps set their work apart. Even when the themes and topics lean towards the over-familiar (breakups, longing, feeling down, other assorted matters of the heart), @ can’t help but mix up the deck with unexpected and often enticing references to demons, haunted thoughts, otherworldly goings-on and such.
Considering how intuitively and seamlessly the voices of the two songwriters intertwine and curl around each other into heavenly and warm close harmonies – and truly breaks into full bloom whenever those harmonies kick in – it’s surprising that Rose and Filipczak recorded their compositions separately. The duo later adorned these basic recordings with added parts from each other, with a small cast of guest musicians on cello, violin, and drums – or not, if the interests of the tune signalled a more minimalist approach.
's more stripped-down moments often provide the highlights. The mysterious and spooky “Earthly Love” sounds like a musty vintage psych-folk gem rescued from a pile of mouldy charity shop castoff LPs, with the song’s plainspoken want interspersed with visitations from possibly malevolent, unearthly beings. The weightlessly drifting “Judgement Farmer” comes on like a traditional folk ballad filtered through early Animal Collective, while the barn dance sway of closer “Amity” tips its hat towards the elemental country/folk thud of Neil Young’s .
Next to this, the fuller band sound of “I’m Not In Pain” may seem like an unnecessary distraction from the hypnotic potential of the songwriting, while the casually dropped references to self-annihilation on the opening “Bird” (musically perhaps the album's most perfectly balanced indie-rock/folk moments, pairing lyrical harshness with the sweetest of melodies) try just a bit too hard to add edge and threat to counter the soul-baring norms of this kind of songwriting.
Still, it’s easy to forgive any missteps when faced with the swooning majesty of the nearly seven-minute title track, a baroque folk-pop gem that dabbles in demonology as an unusual cure for the break-up blues. Generally a very good album, the peaks of suggest that @ may be on the brink of greatness.