Strange Powers

With song titles evoking images of alchemy and the occult, Josh Powers seems to have tapped directly into hermetic knowledge, creating tones that get under your skin in the same way that Skinny Puppy’s “Smothered Hope” does. “Character Map” sounds like a peek into Innsmouth after the introduction of futuristic technology — as if Aleister Crowley and H.P. Lovecraft had made music for a bleaker than black collaborative novel with the assistance of Goblin, especially on the caustic yet hypnotic “Skeleton Key” and the twisted abstraction of “The Vision.” This is music that might have been inspired by a reading of The King in Yellow, Abdul Alhazred’s nefarious tome, alongside Neuromancer. If you kind of wished Jack Dangers would break even more sinister, you should seek this out immediately.