With her debut album, Songs of Grace and Ruin, Kæry Ann presented us with a blend of psychedelic blues and dark folk, something that was beautiful, hypnotic and poisonous all at once. The title of her second album, Moonstone, can be seen as an indication of her new direction: darker, heavier. Haunted by themes such as grief, the forces of nature and existential struggles, this new album delves deeper into darkness, following a trajectory reminiscent of other high priestesses of the night, such as Chelsea Wolfe, A.A. Williams and Darkher.
However, don't think that Erika Azzini, the artist behind the alias Kæry Ann, is content to simply copy tired formulas. The first track, Puritatem Tuam Interiorem Serva, speaks volumes: crushing riffs rub shoulders with brighter flights of fancy, ascending and descending movements spiralling into a storm of contrasts, while the ethereal Latin vocals give the track a sacred connotation. With this first release, Kæry Ann invites us to a ritual. The repetitive loops invite introspective trance, while the reverberation, in addition to summoning a host of spectres, completes the mystical dimension: this is music to be listened to in church, preferably at a funeral.
However, Moonstone is not just a funeral procession. With a hallucinatory guitar riff, Kæry Ann plunges us into a psychedelic, surreal sun, illuminating the ceremony with dreamlike touches (the bittersweet Todeslied, dedicated to the inevitability of death, also exudes a reassuring warmth despite its solemnity) and mysterious mirages (the excellent cover of Bathory's Shores in Flames, more intimate but still managing to preserve its epic power). Introspection and ghostly wanderings, Moonstone still lives up to its name and doesn't really seem of this world. It gives off an impression of closeness, of intimacy, as if we had invited a spirit to take possession of our soul. Yet Kæry Ann is not just the work of a tormented soul: this new album is a much more collective work than the previous one, with bassist Francesca Papi, guitarist Davide Rosa and drummer Fabio Orticoni playing a more involved role this time around.
With its more progressive, denser, heavier tracks, Moonstone shows a new ambition. Erika Azzini, the mistress of ceremonies at this occult mass, is both the medium and the entity being invoked. Her incantatory recitations (the vocals on Hero and Leander, with their almost post-punk tension, or the laments of Mariner's Song) stick in your head as easily as gloomy nursery rhymes. Darkness and sweetness: there is a certain comfort to be found in this balance. Moonstone is an album as beautiful as it is promising for the future of Kæry Ann, who seems determined to give her cocoon of darkness new, mutant forms. So much the better!
