You would hardly expect an artist whose debut solo album was called Blank Unstaring Heirs Of Doom to be full of the joys of spring.
Jana Hunter always looks as miserable as that title sounds and fronting a band, rather than playing alone, doesn't seem to have improved her mood much.
You only have to see her sullen, unsmiling face on the video for the song Brains to be convinced that she's not a woman graced with the lightness of being.
Of course, it could all be part of the image - the Shoegaze of Baltimore's Lower Dens wouldn't be nearly as effective if performed by shiny, happy people.
And effective it is. The band's sophomore release is full of brittle beauty, replete with metronomic drum beats and waves of dense synthesizer and guitar drones. Just don't expect to find any catchy choruses or melodies to hum along to.
The record works by creating and maintaining a vaguely oppressive mood. It opens with Alphabet Song with Hunter singing something about "imperious desire" sounding not dissimilar to Siouxsie Sioux or Zola Jesus and it culminates with a brooding 12 minute tune entitled In The End Is The Beginning.
As a solo artist Hunter has been championed by Devendra Banhart and Vetiver's Andy Cabic, who signed her to their Gnomonsong label. This, together with the fact that her song, Farm, CA, was featured on Banhart's The Golden Apples Of The Sun compilation for Arthur Magazine briefly aligned her with the freak/free folk of the New Weird America.
With Lower Dens, the influences draw in Dream Pop and Krautrock - check out the two minute motorik instrumental Stem.
Mind altering substances may have played a part too given that the album's title, pronounced No-eh-tro-pics, comes from a line of smart memory enhancing drugs.
Backed by a four piece band, Jana Hunter hasn't exactly come out of her shell but shows signs of glowing contentedly in the shadows - look carefully on the Brains video and you'll swear she was stifling a grin.
