There’s no actual goth in Deptford Goth’s music, but it’s easy to understand why Daniel Woolhouse chose that wry moniker. His music often trudges mournfully through the streets mapped out by the likes of James Blake and The xx, all downcast eyes and sleepy, murmured vocals.
His second album, ‘Songs’ (say what you like, but it is, at least, an accurate title), does little to move away from the template set on his debut, ‘Life After Defo’ (review). Plaintive synths and the occasional warming piano provide the backbone for Woolhouse’s (often rather vague) lyrical meditations on life and death. He’s got a strong voice and it’s sensibly pushed more to the front this time around.
Little shafts of light cut through the gloom. Opening track ‘Relics’ finds Woolhouse summoning a Thom Yorke murmur before the song blossoms outwards. ‘We Symbolise’ is built around a gentle, warming piano refrain and ‘Two Hearts’ (video, below) sounds positively upbeat.
That said, this is hardly music to quicken the pulse and there’s no escaping the sense of sameyness over the album’s 40 minutes. The jerky rhythm of ‘The Lovers’ aside, the beats are fairly conventional. It’s a sporadically lovely record, but rarely a hugely thrilling one. This is music for late nights, romantic dinners and the sad bits in BBC One dramas.
6/10
Words: Will Salmon
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Listen to ‘Songs’ via Deezer, below…
