Acre Tarn - Dawn Faces

As a huge fan of Scottish outfit CHVRCHES, whenever I scour for artists and see a band compared to them, my hopes are immediately raised quite high.

Many fail to quite meet the bar that has been set in advance of even listening to the track but a song called 'Dawn Faces' by Acre Tarn did stick with me - it's not ALL that similar to their sound in reality but it definitely takes the best bits of their sound whilst doing something very different with it.

Acre Tarn themselves don't really have much of note to mention. Infact, when it comes to a biography of the band, we're simply presented with a rather eloquent piece of writing explaining they are "A sum of many parts, founded by chance and brought together to realise our musical craft" - in other words, seeing as we have no pictures or any real idea who they are, let's just let their music paint the desired pictures.

The intro to the track is one of the best I've heard so far this year, immediately hitting you with sharp yet quiet synths before quickly settling down into something a lot more tranquil. It helps to create quite a special infusion of something that is both exciting yet really quite beautiful and capturing at the same time.

In particular what stands out in the track is Acre Tarn's vocallist, so soothing and rich that it draws you in such a contrasting manner to the bold production that surrounds it. They accentuate one another so well in a way that reminds of MS MR - it doesn't always take a big vocal like Lauren Mayberry (CHVRCHES vocallist) to amplify the synth/electro genre to its best. Instead, the way in which the timid, beautiful vocals heard in Dawn Faces creates something more haunting.

There's a lot of ways I could describe this track, many of them appearing to contrast with one another; eery, at points minimal and then within a matter of seconds, anything but minimal with the combination of a deep, crashing production and a stronger vocal. I always enjoy music when I'm able to discover another layer of the track with further listens and this is a perfect example of that type of song.

But most importantly when it all comes together, it's just a bloody good song.

Listen for yourself here: