Assuredness, it turns out, is Damon McMahon’s mission statement. The follow up to last year’s Love LP is Cowboy Worship, a collection of songs at EP length – but this doesn’t put CW in the shadows.

It is, instead, a bracing and sorrowful EP with its own sense of renewal. The first released track, a cover of This Mortal Coil’s interpretation of Tim Buckley classic Song To The Siren, was recorded by McMahon with help from a guitarist who lives upstairs. McMahon enforces the organicity of this type of collaborative project:

“We didn’t have to say much to each other, which was a sign it would work. There isn’t much talking in Amen Dunes; things either flow naturally or not at all.”

Resultantly, with his huge exposed vocal, McMahon coats guitars sounding like streams-of-consciousness. Its effect is devastating, a modern ode if ever there was one, made entirely for rainy January nights; all tense frenetic wordplay and arresting pace – but it might just fit a duvet moment, too.

Amen Dunes: Song To The Siren —————– Like it? Tell us!