Creep Show - Yawning Abyss CD

"Yawning Abyss - their second album – and follow-up 2018’s Mr Dynamite are both scarce and cryptic, with the latter most likely intentionally, we are meant to interpret Yawning Abyss within the abyss of our own imagination. Teasing us with snippets of dramatic clues and allowing us to decide what is happening in this canyon of the unknown and perhaps how it reflects on our view of the world.

Due to the experimental electro and techno produced by the group’s love of Roland and Moog vintage synths, as well as the robotic manipulation of John Grant and Stephen Mallinder’s voices, most of Yawning Abyss is reminiscent of Kraftwerk’s Man Machine. This is what makes this critic think about AI. From the off, we are engaged in some mechanical therapy on the heavily filtered ‘The Bellows’. A track that’s croaky detached vocals spring to mind David Lynch‘s ‘Good Day Today’. If thinking about the lyrics in a topical way, the computerised therapist could be having a session with Russia’s incumbent leader. The robotic vocals accuse: “You are complacent, but you still don’t get it/The bombs are dropping, but you won’t be stopping, ” before the track ends with it confessing in its faultiness: “Computers are such strange fellows.”"