Ocean Death in Bloomington, MN

Since
Baths
' excellent 2013 album
Obsidian
was almost frighteningly intense and confessional, it's not surprising that
Will Wiesenfeld
lightens up a little on the
Ocean Death
EP. These songs aren't exactly lighthearted -- though touches of mordant wit surface here and there -- but they echo
's concerns with slightly different perspectives.
Wiesenfeld
explores love, death, and the death of love in ways that are more reflective than wrenching: where
's "Earth Death" was visceral and claustrophobic, the EP's title track is almost giddy, promising freedom in its choral harmonies and ritual-like beats.
's subtler sounds and emotions have just as much impact as that album's more brutal approach, however.
pairs beguiling music with blunt words on "Orator," summing up a relationship that's already dead neatly with the lyric "We can talk all you want/But you don't speak to me." On "Yawn," he traces the almost imperceptible line between comfort and complacency, singing "Your steady breath when you're reading/I think about our love and its lack of meaning" as static chips away at his distant piano and vocals. The closest he gets to a love song is "Fade White," a sweetly nihilistic wish for shared oblivion that sounds at once desperate and wry.
isn't as overtly ambitious as its predecessor, but it's a welcome companion piece, full of finely sketched portraits that showcase
's growth and depth more than
's fury sometimes allowed. ~ Heather Phares