Kill Scenes

KILL SCENES is the Chicago based project of multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Sean Whittaker and vocalist Meghan Lamb. Whittaker’s music combines pop hooks, cinematic soundscapes, electronic abrasion, and searing, melodic guitars while Lamb’s vocals layer vulnerability, beauty, aggression, sensuality, and terror. The result is a beguiling combination of The Cure, Depeche Mode, and Tangerine Dream fronted by an unholy conflation of Siouxsie Sioux, Kate Bush, and Diamanda Galás. MASQUE, their fourth album, coils minimalism and grandeur with a Lynchian interrogation of identity, power, possession, transformation, and destruction. “The Chrysalis” is a shimmering fever dream backdrop to a mid-80s Michael Mann film while the first single, “Acid Black Window,” is strewn with haunted vocals, crushing guitar noise, and what sounds like a choir of demented mermaids. “Teeth” trembles from a luscious drone to a pulverizing industrial chorus and “Word of Warmth” is the intoxicating beauty of something slightly rotten. Finally, the throbbing “Phantom Dark” culminates the album with towering guitars and deranged operatic vocals.