Every release has a concept, or at least some sort of nucleus of an idea behind its conception, and as the title suggests, this is very much the case with this, the latest offering from the UK based dark industrial/electronica group Attrition. Telling the story of Mary Ann Cotton, a British serial killer who left a trail of at least twenty murders (some her own children, others were partners) by poisoning with arsenic, behind her. She was arrested and hanged in 1873. ‘All Mine Enemys Whispers’ has a brilliant concept behind it, and thankfully Martin Bowes, the main driving force behind Attrition since its birth in 1982, does a hugely impressive job in transferring the murderously haunting qualities of the story into a wonderfully intense dark ambient album.

Over recent years, Attrition have become renowned for their unusual coupling of electro beats, neo-classical music arrangements and operatic female and deep male vocals, all held together by a huge swathe of darkened atmosphere. Yet just below the surface, Attrition has always strived to be more diverse than this, with a number of their releases, including their 1982 ‘Death House’ release, focusing on the more experimental recesses of dark ambient compositions and captivatingly dark soundtracks, which is pretty much where we find ourselves now.

With a strong backbone of dense layers of dark ambient soundscapes and washes of electronic drones, a suitably dark and ominous atmosphere is produced and maintained throughout the album. This is built upon with lush neo-classical string arrangements, which add a depth and tantalisingly seductive and dreamily eerie edge to the proceedings, and are joined by a lone piano piece and the slow tones of a saxophone. The dark atmosphere created by this amalgamation of traditional instruments and electronically produced soundscapes is fantastically compelling, and has captivating qualities that share a great similarity to the attributes of a musical score. However Attrition are not content with stopping there. Oh no. They want this musical interpretation of Mary Ann Cotton’s story to be even more atmospheric and chilling, which they achieve by adding vocals in a variety of different styles, ranging from barely audible whispers of incidental vocals to children’s rhymes to the beautifully seductive charms of Emilie Autumn’s vocals on ‘Rock of Ages’. The use of occasional vocals on a predominantly instrumental album is executed fantastically well, and as such just adds another dimension to the drifting soundscapes that swirl beneath them, without becoming overpowering or losing the atmosphere that the music alone creates.

The album is housed in an impressively designed digipack and accompanied by a six-page inset that tells the story of Mary Ann Cotton, and how this infamous mass murder can be linked to Attrition’s Martin Bowes through his ancestor, police sergeant Tom McCutcheon. Also included in the first pressing are a number of stickers reproducing the labels from the arsenic bottles that Mary Ann would have used.

There’s a huge catalogue of material out there that Attrition have produced over the years, with this album ranking near the top of the pile. It delivers the perfect exploration point for those who have yet to discover Attrition’s work, and for those already familiar with it, it delivers a dark, surreal exploration of sounds and aural textures from a band that never fails to impress.

www.attrition.co.uk

www.projekt.com