Belfast artist Jason Mills’s Deadman’s Ghost is nothing if the
adjective “haunting” is not in front of whatever description you come up with.
Death, ghosts, dead men, spirits, corpses, sprites, tragedy – all this stuff
(and I realize most of these words are synonyms for each other, especially
within the world Mills is creating) permeates the songs of Hypocritical Oath, an electo-folk excursion where
Appalachian-backporch-acoustics (think Nick Cave or David Eugene Edwards at
their most earthy) meet synthesizers and other electronics in the air, in the
clouds, literally raptured and well met by the risen Lord Jesus Christ,
returned to judge and to save. Wow! There’s, uh, at least banjo and some
serious self-reflection that I imagine turns up in the Bible Belt here in the
United States, and probably in Ireland too at points. Who is really to say
anymore – it’s all just a big swirly pagan mess in a cauldron simmering for maximum
jucifying, leavened with thick slabs of meaty synthesizer at points to remind
you that you’re not really in an
un-air-conditioned church in the heat of the rural Alabama summer handling
venomous snakes. At least “Neck Romancer” has the decency to drop a beat! “Neck
Romancer” … I get it. Hey, you should get it too! This tape, I mean. I’m
digging it.
--Ryan Masteller
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