Brimming over with wee-hours-of-the-morning cold sweats, the aptly named Total Depravity finds the
Veils sifting through the wreckage of heartache, regret, and
Lovecraftian terror via an icy slow drip of
Bad Seeds-kissed electro-funk and bluesy, minor-key wailing that suggest a dark night of the soul worthy of Sisyphus. The London-via-New Zealand-bred unit's fifth studio long-player was co-produced by
Run the Jewels' co-conspirator
El-P, alongside frontman
Finn Andrews and
Nick Cave architect Atom Greenspan, and it introduces a textural change -- a whole lot of loops and gear-driven bells and whistles -- that effectively doubles down on the group's predilection toward alternately soulful and dystopian sonic miasma. Total Depravity is largely narrative based, with
Andrews taking on a host of colorful characters, including a sociopathic long haul trucker ("King of Chrome") and a neotenic Mexican salamander ("Axolotl") -- it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that he was tapped by director and longtime
Veils fan
David Lynch for an appearance on the newly rebooted Twin Peaks. His penchant for playing the hellfire and brimstone preacher owes more than a cursory nod to
Tom Waits and the aforementioned
Cave, both of whom he cites as inspirations, but his take on the dark underbelly of American culture feels as rooted in sensuality as it does in sin and salvation. There is a soulful and undeniably sultry swagger to sad-sack room clearers like "Swimming with Crocodiles," "Iodine and Iron," and the tension-filled title cut, which echoes
Jeff Buckley, and while
Andrews may lack the late singer/songwriter's angelic pipes, he shares his knack for making the darkness in all of us feel both hopeless and sexy. ~ James Christopher Monger