I am led to believe that there were times when the world was full of happy songs. Those times may indeed be the result of the consumption of high sugar content drinks and the overuse of rose tinted glasses for the songs of today would seem to be the soundtrack to altogether bleaker times with the case in point being the “Lovers & Others” EP by Debdepan.
There are but five songs here but all of them are clearly the work of the sirens of the shadows. The lyrics contain absolutely no references to candy floss and fluffy bunnies with the words of this duo being jagged and, quite often, verging on being psalms for the soon to be disenchanted with life. The music is, of course, looped mercilessly as is the way of this darkwave duo yet this seems entirely appropriate to this commentary on the artificiality of the world. Some might expect some gothic stylisations to add that touch of the mystical to go with the mascara but no such touches exist as Debdepan - Chelsea Tolhurst & Grace Bontoft - instead walk the streets of obsession and disconnection far more often than they do the leafy boulevards of romanticism.
This EP is a product of this time and place. It is processed and looped, as most of the music borne of the urban environment is, yet there is a blood stained charm bracelet to be found in the shadows between the notes and, with that, Debdepan have made the bleak into something rather less black.