Miserable – Loverboy / Dog Days (Sargent House, 2018)

When she’s not rocking out with her doomy, droney metal outfit, King Woman, Kristin Esfandiari is Miserable.

It didn’t take me that long to sink my aural teeth into Loverboy; its atmospheric ‘90s gloom pretty much had me from the outset. Esfandiari’s voice sails on an alluring wave of reverb induced haunted loveliness, supported by an unassuming but ethereal three-piece, somewhat reminiscent of a filthier The Jesus & Mary Chain.

The chorus of opener and title track, Loverboy is delightful. This maybe be down to the fact that it’s quite difficult to make out the lyrics, which is lost in the aforementioned wave of reverb. It’s a shame because she sounds like she’s seriously sad about something; I can only assume that she’s hacked off about an ex-lover and the fact that the words were hastily scribbled on to napkins whilst on public transport makes me think that this person really fucked her over. The melody, the ghostly vocal and the subtle but prolonged backing vocals are more than enough to pleasure the senses, however.

Apparently, this EP has been a long time coming and has suffered a few setbacks in the production process, including a hard drive catching fire and all the original recordings suffering digital third degree burns… enough to make you bloody miserable. Ahem.

You can check this out on the bandcamp player below:

You can get this from the EU/UK webstore or from the US webstore on CD or vinyl,and it’s available digitally from the Miserable bandcamp page.

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