Blending deft horror-folk with shimmering indie soundscapes, brooding rock darkness and the occasional swathe of shoegaze density, “What Passed Me By This Night” is a unique sonic cocktail. It is relatively easy to identify the various building blocks that make up the song, but as is always the way, “it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.” Sure, the sonic elements might be familiar, but what R.M. Hendrix builds with them amounts to some fabulous sonic architecture in its own right.
Imagine if bands such as The Church or perhaps R.E.M. had gone a different route and, instead of defining the popular and, eventually, more commercial end of the formative indie sound of the day, had opted instead (had chronology been in their favour) to write soundtracks for the likes of Robert Eggers or Mike Flanagan’s dark and delicious cinematic outings. Such a scenario would get you closer to understanding the bruised and brooding beauty of what Hendrix does here.
There is a gothic resonance to be found at work but not of the sort found in the overly theatric and often cliched genre of the same name. This is rather, the same haunting darkness that hung around Nico and the kind of minimalism and atmosphere that drifted through Elliot Smith’s more chilled moments.
Dark and delicious yet melodic and mercurial, it is the very fact that Hendrix doesn’t overplay his hand, overegg the horror vibe, or overblow this fractured and fractious sound that makes it work so well and raise a chill so effectively.
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