Esben and the Witch - Nowhere (2018)
Esben and the Witch - Nowhere (2018)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 204 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 87 Mb | 00:37:51
Shoegaze, Post-Rock, Post-Punk, Drone, Female Vocal | Label: Season of Mist
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 204 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 87 Mb | 00:37:51
Shoegaze, Post-Rock, Post-Punk, Drone, Female Vocal | Label: Season of Mist
Esben and the Witch have had an interesting career trajectory. Their debut, Violet Cries was a dreamy, melancholic mix of post-rock and dream pop that sat somewhere between those two genres without really being either one. It worked and worked well, and the band sounded hungry and ready for more. That was seven years ago, and the band are now preparing to release their fifth album, entitled Nowhere.Tracklist:
Since their debut, the band have evolved their sound with a masterful subtlety. Their dreamy, lengthy psyche-pop songs have become shot through with a creeping darkness, a tension that’s almost impossible to pin down yet very obviously there. Skirting the edges of doom metal and shoegaze at times on their previous album Older Terrors, the band have written an even more somber and beautiful album with Nowhere, and while it doesn’t necessarily break new ground for the band, evolution rather than revolution is often a better bet for acts who have an established but highly malleable sound, as Esben and the Witch certainly do.
Where Older Terrors was a brooding, slow burn of an album that was darker than previous works while maintaining their dark pop sensibilities, Nowhere is more immediate of an album, with opening track “A Desire For Light” hitting you with distorted guitar chords and hypnotic drumming right out of the gate, setting the tone for the rest of the album. Nowhere has a lot in common with Older Terrors, but it’s also its own beast, content to both iterate on the band’s established sound while
I’d be remiss not to pause here and mention the production of the album, because it’s excellent and very effective at enhancing the band’s songwriting. Dreamy guitar arpeggios float in and out of focus, buoyed by an excellent drum and bass sound that allows the guitars and Rachel Davies angelic siren songs room to breath without being overbearing or taking away from any of the individual instrumental performances. The entire album sounds like a terrific live album being performed inside a cavern that happens to have an excellent sound system. Perhaps not the best analogy, but it’s the closest to what this album sounds like. It has a very “this was performed live” sound to it, and benefits from that.
Almost every track on Nowhere introduces some new element to the band’s sound, even if that element is just subtle folk, shoegaze or doom influences. the opening track “A Desire For Light” is very shoegaze influenced, for example, while the following track “Dull Gret” leans more towards doom. The band’s formula of messing with their formula seems like a strange choice, but it works very well and makes every track on the album easily identifiable and unique.
Nowhere isn’t anything revolutionary from Esben and the Witch but it’s a near perfect execution of their formula and an excellent iteration on, and follow up to, Older Terrors. This is a band that deserves greater recognition, and hopefully, Nowhere will be the album that grants them that. In a stacked year for great music, you’d be remiss to pass this up.
1 A Desire For Light
2 Dull Gret
3 Golden Purifier
4 The Unspoiled
5 Seclusion
6 Darkness (I Too Am Here)
Exact Audio Copy V1.3 from 2. September 2016
EAC extraction logfile from 27. November 2018, 18:34
Esben And The Witch / Nowhere
Used drive : PLEXTOR DVDR PX-716A Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 30
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : Yes
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 7:28.35 | 0 | 33634
2 | 7:28.35 | 6:22.67 | 33635 | 62351
3 | 13:51.27 | 4:49.34 | 62352 | 84060
4 | 18:40.61 | 6:13.65 | 84061 | 112100
5 | 24:54.51 | 5:21.16 | 112101 | 136191
6 | 30:15.67 | 7:35.37 | 136192 | 170353
Track 1
Filename E:\EACRips\01 A Desire For Light.wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 417F427E
Copy CRC 417F427E
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename E:\EACRips\02 Dull Gret.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 828E32C8
Copy CRC 828E32C8
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 3
Filename E:\EACRips\03 Golden Purifier.wav
Peak level 93.5 %
Extraction speed 3.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC E32C3ECF
Copy CRC E32C3ECF
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename E:\EACRips\04 The Unspoiled.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC F210A492
Copy CRC F210A492
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 5
Filename E:\EACRips\05 Seclusion.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 741065AB
Copy CRC 741065AB
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 6
Filename E:\EACRips\06 Darkness (I Too Am Here).wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.7 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC A2D41C6A
Copy CRC A2D41C6A
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6
[CTDB TOCID: JxIhNhRhvCcO6wgu4_XGzPVmP2s-] found
Submit result: JxIhNhRhvCcO6wgu4_XGzPVmP2s- has been confirmed
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
2 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
3 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
4 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
5 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
6 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
==== Log checksum 96796D8957A0C76F968477A7A844A58C8392DF422D35EB2F99B74AC4A0C12D24 ====
EAC extraction logfile from 27. November 2018, 18:34
Esben And The Witch / Nowhere
Used drive : PLEXTOR DVDR PX-716A Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 30
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : Yes
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 7:28.35 | 0 | 33634
2 | 7:28.35 | 6:22.67 | 33635 | 62351
3 | 13:51.27 | 4:49.34 | 62352 | 84060
4 | 18:40.61 | 6:13.65 | 84061 | 112100
5 | 24:54.51 | 5:21.16 | 112101 | 136191
6 | 30:15.67 | 7:35.37 | 136192 | 170353
Track 1
Filename E:\EACRips\01 A Desire For Light.wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 417F427E
Copy CRC 417F427E
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename E:\EACRips\02 Dull Gret.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 828E32C8
Copy CRC 828E32C8
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 3
Filename E:\EACRips\03 Golden Purifier.wav
Peak level 93.5 %
Extraction speed 3.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC E32C3ECF
Copy CRC E32C3ECF
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename E:\EACRips\04 The Unspoiled.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC F210A492
Copy CRC F210A492
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 5
Filename E:\EACRips\05 Seclusion.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 741065AB
Copy CRC 741065AB
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 6
Filename E:\EACRips\06 Darkness (I Too Am Here).wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 3.7 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC A2D41C6A
Copy CRC A2D41C6A
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6
[CTDB TOCID: JxIhNhRhvCcO6wgu4_XGzPVmP2s-] found
Submit result: JxIhNhRhvCcO6wgu4_XGzPVmP2s- has been confirmed
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
2 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
3 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
4 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
5 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
6 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
==== Log checksum 96796D8957A0C76F968477A7A844A58C8392DF422D35EB2F99B74AC4A0C12D24 ====
Thanks to the Original ripper Dredd !