Bernard + Edith: Jem | Album review

Dig beneath the appealing surface of this oddly named duo (the middle names of Manchester-based Nick Delap and Greta Carroll) and you’ll discover more than obvious London Grammar and The xx comparisons.

Delap was a member of once-tipped Egyptian Hip Hop, so he knows about upending expectations, and while the Bernard+Edith ethos isn’t necessarily unpredictable there is a sense that there’s more going on here than you might have initially thought.

Take the potent eastern promises of I Will Be and China, which insinuate like snakes around wrists; the echoes of Cocteau Twins and Portishead in Crocodiles and Tidal Wave; and Poppy, which has a sinister Sade-like R&B undertow that brings to mind those brilliantly unsettling Julee Cruise/Angelo Badalamenti songs in Twin Peaks.

Topped off with superb vocals from Carroll, it is a debut album of astute, unconventional pop-noir.

[ bellaunion.com ]