Originally written by Mike Diver · 12 December 2005
Orenda Fink
Bloodline
Label: Saddle Creek Release Date: 12/12/2005
There's menace here, believe: Orenda Fink may flutter her eyelashes and smile innocently, acting as if she'd nay stroke a cat's fur the wrong way nor set even the most humane trap for a mouse about her house, but 'Bloodline' is evil.
Fink, of course, sings as if she's freshly descended from the heavens, but this bassline is packing cleavers and chainsaws in its haversack. Not even a gently strummed acoustic guitar can cleanse the atmosphere; 50 seconds in and you're certain a cloaked figure is going to spring from the shadows behind your speakers and stab you, repeatedly, leaving you to bleed out while Fink sighs your epitaph.
"There's no way out, if I catch you breathing," she says forcefully. Best play dead and hope this spectre passes over without bowing its head your way.
• 6 Mike Diver's Score