Dark Angel

This Argentinean duo has an interesting take on the Goth/darkwave style. Keyboardist and programmer Juan Andres Celasco intersperses the album with selections from the baroque and classical keyboard traditions — a Bach prelude here, a Chopin prelude there — and generously loads the rest of the program with liturgical themes and flavors. Song titles like "Agnus Dei" and "O Domine Jesu Christe" rub shoulders with titles like "Dunkel Leben" and "You'll Die," and singer Claudia Rolando's style is deliberately operatic and occasionally downright overwrought. Interestingly, the group's sound is spare and ascetic rather than heavy or grandiose; even when the jackboot rhythms kick in on "Deep Hurt" or when "You'll Die" descends into dubwise morbidity, there's none of the self-important, apocalyptic drama in which so many of Lamia's peers indulge. That combination of cosmic lyrical aspiration and down-to-earth musical modesty make Lamia an unusually interesting group, and makes its debut album a genuine pleasure to listen to.