Esben and the Witch are a three piece indie rock band from Brighton, England. After a self-released EP 33 in 2009 and a limited 7-inch single Lucia, at the Precipice in February 2010, the band signed with Matador Records. The band\'s debut single for the label, Marching Song, was released on 11 October 2010, with their debut album Violet Cries was released on January 31 2011

Since forming in Brighton in 2008, Esben and the Witch have had just a few releases behind them including Lucia, at the Precipice\". They have had positive press support from NME, Pitchfork Media and The Guardian, plus experience of concerts alongside The xx, Wild Beasts, Foals, and The Big Pink. In May 2010 the band contributed to the London edition of The Creators Project, warping one of 33\'s tracks, Corridors, into an eighteen-minute soundscape to soundtrack artist Karl Sadler\'s lit forest installation. On October 19th 2010 it was revealed that the band were nominated for a Q Award as next big thing, the award eventually being won by Clare Maguire on October 25. The following day Matador Records announced the band\'s debut album Violet Cries is to be released in January-February 2011.
On 6 December 2010, the BBC announced that the band had been nominated for the BBC\'s Sound of 2011 poll. Violet Cries received an 8/10 rating from NME, with reviewer Ben Hewitt describing it as gothic, but not goth and akin to entering a Ye Olde English fairy tale. (wikipedia)

Violet Cries is an excitingly austere and irony-free album, one that is much more Siouxsie and the Banshees than My Chemical Romance or White Ring. It’s perhaps inevitable that EATW vocalist Rachel Davies will draw comparisons to the grand doyenne of funereal rock, Siouxsie Sioux, given her crystal intonation and massive presence, and the band (also featuring Daniel Copeman and Thomas Fisher on guitars and electronics) ostensibly follows a similar path. But multiple listens throw up an understated and subtle modernity on tracks such as Chorea, which adds some smart drum programming to mirror its lyrics. The feet start to beat strange tattoos on the street, before a warmly twanging rock guitar kicks in and the vocals intertwine in a nightmarish whirlpool of dub and echo. This is no museum piece: it is like a darker-hued cousin of The xx rather than some pastiche of The Cure or Sisters of Mercy.
From the dream-like artwork to the sepulchral production, everything about this album says Serious with a capital S and Quality with a capital Q. This effectively does much to create distance between itself and the fashion goth scene of east London. As such it is an album that gives up its charms slowly, but its painstaking attention to detail, dark shadows and languid depths will see it become an essential companion for many sombre souls in 2011 and beyond.(John Doran)


 
 1. Argyria
 2. Marching Song
 3. Marine Fields Glow
 4. Light Streams
 5. Hexagons Iv
 6. Chorea
 7. Warpath
 8. Battlecry - Mimicry
 9. Eumenides
10. Swans