Upon receiving this from our editor and firing it up to listen, I was immediately reminded of a stark and grim horror soundtrack… then surprised to hear the layers begin to take shape. And that was just the beginning for Done With You, a delightfully shadowy little EP from Confrontational. After scouring the net for a little background, all I could find was that Confrontational is from southern Europe. Mysterious suits me just fine as a retrowave fan… plenty of our heroes go that way. It detracts nothing from the impact of these songs.
The aforementioned intro track, “Wanderer In Darkness,” leads perfectly, establishing the tone and mood of the whole set. Soft organ chords and carefully faded-in rhythm establish a good sense of spookiness without being corny or over-wrought. The titular track is a bit more upbeat, and VERY 80s. Vapory guitar strumming and flanged synth accompany some excellent vocals, which surprised me with their quality. They don’t seem doctored or tuned at all… whoever’s singing is very talented. It’s almost on par with stuff like New Order, but not as monotonous as they can be. There’s more of the same on the next track, “Giving Ground (The Sisterhood),” but unless I’m mistaken, there’s a second vocalist? I’m led to believe this may not be someone’s solo work. If it is, they have a very impressive range. This track also has some great guitar solo work. It comes across as darkly romantic, which doesn’t appeal to me personally but is extremely well-executed and therefore earns my respect. Ghostly lead-ins and Vangelis-esque arpeggios open up the final track, “Under This Crimson Sky.” This time the vocals are being delivered through a filter… it’s a familiar sound setup, and maybe impresses me the least of all four tracks, but it avoids being a total drone-fest. Overall production on these tracks is commendable, very sharp and crisp with nothing sloppy about it.
I’d give this album seven out of ten. It’s a solid, professional effort, holds significant genre appeal, and the vocals are quite good. It is definitely worth a listen.
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