Wholy Failure

Broken Limbs is a new label, choosing to release strange, intelligent records that have an itchy, uncomfortable quality that gets under the listener's skin. Wholy Failure falls in line with their aesthetic preferences and Avalon and Everything After manages to be both dreary and compelling. The project was initially conceived as a noise outlet and combines post-punk and shoegaze with the shroud-like, oppressive atmosphere of doom, with the occasional eruption of noise to keep things interesting. All the music is composed and performed entirely by Patrick A. Hasson (Black Chalice, Avulse). The vocals are haunting and lugubrious, fed through layers of echo and reverb to create a gloom-filled, ghostly effect. Each note is carefully weighed, so that every pluck of a string on "Cold Slow Rain" reverberates through the listener, having substance and form. "What Slow Death Waits By The Sea?" opens like a yawning chasm at the listener's feet, vast and hungry. The songs on Avalon and Everything After have heft, an architectural structure that's palpable. The record creates an open, draft-y space and gets the listener lost inside, with cobwebs, ghosts and all the dark things you only think about when you're completely alone.