Howling Bells - Cities Burning Down

(Muso's Guide, February 12, 2009)

Single reviews

Howling Bells are a funny one.

There’s no reason to think that they should sound like other Antipodean recording artistes, but it is startling that their sound is indicative of an adolescence mired in angst and clouded by misery. An adolescence spent in Britain, if you will.

But Australian they are, and a band out of time, as singer Juanita Stein’s ethereal voice elevates the folk goths to something really quite exquisite.

‘Cities Burning Down’ sees the Bells plowing the auditorily dense shoegazing soundscape, with astounding results. From an intro beat that fades in like a Kevin Shields dream sequence, Stein’s vocal is truly captivating from the off, haunting and almost primal as “Trapped in rising water”, she croons. She is Cassandra, telling of doom and destruction against an elegiac backing.

The song’s swelling guitars mark out its intense melancholia, with a distressing awareness of the inevitable - “Cities burning down again…”. Howling Bells have a lovely knack of merging all the presence of a stadium filler Simple Minds-style with a delicious outsider schtick, aping goth gloom like a post-modern The Cure.

As a pre-cursor to the upcoming Radio Wars album, ‘Cities Burning Down’ carries tremendous weight. It’s clear that the Bells have been savvy enough not to desert their successful formula, but, in this song anyway, they are striding once again into that dark night, and it’s delicious.