Deep and mournful but with quite a strong and powerful reach, Alex ‘A.A.’ Williams’ voice is a truly engrossing experience. Sullen and sorrowful when appropriate, and at other times radiant and robust, Williams tempers her vocal performance with a maturity arguably way beyond her years as this, impressively, is her debut EP.
The gentle, brooding and lyrically introspective nature of the music creates images in the mind of dimly lit, smoky and intimate performance spaces in which artists can make very personal connections with an audience. Pivotal, pirouetting post-rock-style guitar lines bleed colour into the bleached melancholia with exquisite and impactful timing.
Drawing comparisons with the likes of Emma Ruth Rundle, Cat Power and Chelsea Wolfe, the first 4-track offering from A.A. Williams hints at great things to come. The songs, while fully formed and oozing gothic darkness, can also rather easily be reimagined to be longer, grander and more imposing and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find this on a full-length record somewhere down the line.
For anyone fortunate enough to be attending Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands later this year, Williams will take her place alongside Pijn, Conjurer, Secret Cutter and Svalbard as part of the Holy Roar Records showcase.
