School of Seven Bells - SVIIB, album review: 'surprising poppiness among the sadness'

New York electronic group release the final music they made before the death of member Benjamin Curtis
Overpowering: the new School of Seven Bells album includes the last music recorded before Benjamin Curtis' death
David Smyth12 February 2016

School of Seven Bells began as an indie electronic three-piece in New York around 2007, and end their existence with singer Alejandra Deheza the sole member.

School of Seven Bells - SVIIB

Her sister Claudia left for prosaic reasons, but it’s the absence of Benjamin Curtis, who died from T-cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma in 2013, aged just 35, that is most keenly felt.

This fourth album is the last music that he and Deheza made together, completed last year by her.

Lyrically it’s impossible not to hear terrible poignancy in lines such as “I wish there was a way to reassure your heart” in A Thousand Eyes, but this is tempered by bright synth lines and a surprising poppiness to songs such as Signals.

Only on the stunning, beatless ballad Confusion does the sadness become overpowering.

(Full Time Hobby)

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