Gavin Miller and Tom Ragsdale are working away in the dark crevices of Victorian-Gothic Bradford and Leeds. They chip away in pursuit of an emotionally excited, melodically inclined techno-glitchy post rock lo-fi instrumental music.
The extracted ores to date (of which this is the second) are sparkly and attractive. There's a commendable impatience in the execution. WORRIEDABOUTSATAN have done a deal at some crossroads that if the muse gives them some elated moments they won't fiddle for too long on smoothing, taming and perfecting them. If electronica (with a guitar) can sound raw and natural, then this EP2 achieves the required level of immediacy
"The Butterfly Effect" appeared on, and was positively reviewed from an Onthebone compilation. Here it's preceded by a brief flurry called " Prelude in D for Heartbeat and Noise". It acts as an immediate reassurance that WORRIEDABOUTSATAN have something to say and a unique approach to saying it.
"Noise 1 (Reprise)" does very gentle harmonic surges, tapped across with that dry-as-silicon percussion that always gets the word "glitch" but deserves more. In regional terms, BRACKEN and RANDOM NUMBER are leaders in the field. Bits of KIERON HEBDEN might be cited but this is chamber concert music rather than dance. The implied tune is long and sweet, the atmosphere is spacey and a little eerie.
The sampled voice in the second track is supplanted with a full sung vocal line in "Relative Minors". The vocalist is rising star PAUL MARSHALL, whose own work is making serious waves. Here, his voice and the plaintive lyrics become WORRIEDABOUTSATAN's own. It's a striking song, weighing in with the six minutes plus that is the norm for Miller and Ragsdale.
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"Morwenna (Part 2)" has also been available on a compilation before now (in an earlier version). Here it shimmers in and out of the silence like a distant EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY arriving in time to redeem the electrostatic séance of conversational laptop. The glistening guitar notes fall in showers around the 0s and 1s. A more aggressive tempo is picked up in war zone percussion sounds and a couple of big emotional phrases sing across it all.
"The Last Song (First Song Remix)" concludes the event in briefer measure, clipping inside five minutes. It has a churchy feel and a bigger sound, with a racing heartbeat chopped into disorientation with some quality industrial noises and tones.
For Christmas, I want EP3 to have massive bass and the occasional beating of elephants on a ship's hull to fill out the lower end of the spectrum. The satanic message is getting through loud and clear on EP2: now it’s time for WORRIEDABOUTSATAN to move into the bigger spaces that their adventurous explorations have started to reveal. The louder you play it, the better it gets. A fitting climax has a disappearing chime going over a rainbow. Somewhere.
https://soundcloud.com/worriedaboutsatan
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