Over the last three years, James Kelly has garnered his fair share of attention for crafting slow-burning, cavernous black metal under the moniker Altar of Plagues. With his electronic-based side-project, Wife, the Cork, Ireland multi-instrumentalist channels his cellar-dwelling ambience with debut EP Stoic. Feeling warmer and more delicate, Kelly takes up greater space on the proverbial canvas with Wife, letting rhythms gestate and beats incubate. On "Bodies," the album's only instrumental, Kelly flirts with electro-acoustics, dubstep and even new age while never sounding beholden to any one musical gene. The choice to leave icy breaths and phrase-closing moans attached to the final vocal tracks only enhances Kelly's gorgeously morose delivery. On numbers like the gothic/jittery "Circles" and the metallic/whispery "Trails," Kelly comes off as an artist absolutely energized by the infinite options that electronic music provides, and Stoic is a near-perfect effort because of it. (left_blank)
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