Here, she continues the grand tradition within Purity Ring of beautifying and even romanticizing viscera and gore, sometimes overt, others obfuscated.
It’s hard to put a finger on what it is, but her voice – and her ability to sound both ethereal and like a powerful sorceress all at once – feels irreplaceable amid, say, the shuddering energy of “rubyinsides” or the glittering textures of “stardew.” Unsurprisingly, James, too, sounds excellent, her talents as a singer and songwriter noticeably sharper on WOMB – even at its haziest on WOMB, she sounds infinitely clearer, and more powerful. His beats cradle Megan James’ voice staggeringly well. Truly, it sounds like what their sophomore album could have sounded like in an alternate universe, full of all the catchy, idiosyncratic moments that populated their debut. Producer/multi-instrumental wunderkind Corin Roddick seems to erase the arena-chasing aspirations of another eternity for the sake of simply polishing the hell out of their Shrines aesthetic, though admittedly he loses some of the best bizarreness of that debut (though he only waits until the second track, “pink lightning,” to toss in some pitch-shifted vocals).
It still had some quality weirdness in it (and the stunning single “push pull”), but in the span of three years, it seemed like they’d lost almost all of their spark.Īfter just one listen to their great new record, WOMB, it feels like they’ve managed to strike some kind of balance. 2015 brought another eternity, which sounded like every other band in their field, resulting in them sounding like they were just aping Chvrches. The right people caught on to how damn good it was, and a year later, they were remixing Lady Gaga songs, and a year later were helping Danny Brown make Old.
That was the story of Canadian duo Purity Ring – after the catchy, bizarre Shrines (2012), which provided a series of grim pop songs about holes drilled into eyelids and spread ribs wide as acts of loving devotion. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: after making an interesting, engaging indie-pop record, the band who made it follows it up with a sophomore release that seems like the band that made it forgot most of what made the first one so good for the sake of creating garden-variety pop that sounds like everyone else.
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