Chimehours

The debut of the British duo Chimehours, formed by Beck Goldsmith and Jon Dix, turns folk music into a specter. Underneath The Earth, inspired by the horror novel Lanny by Max Porter, does not use folk as a means of returning to tradition, but as a tool for renewal: a living substance to be shaped until it becomes a gothic fable, set in an isolated village surrounded by woods, just like in the reference novel.

Strings intertwine with traditional folk instruments—acoustic guitars and woodwinds—expanding compositional possibilities and opening up cinematic and orchestral scenarios: Underneath The Earth works, in every respect, like the soundtrack to a book. A brilliant idea, developed with great attention to detail, thanks to ambient textures that stretch the narrative tension and an ethereal, fragile, and magnetic vocal performance by Beck Goldsmith, capable of recalling the most refined acoustic ballads of Marissa Nadler.

The title track represents the perfect point of balance between these elements, condensing the project’s pagan-folk-horror aesthetic. The percussion, when it comes into play (particularly in “Toothwort Took Him” and “Run”), accentuates a tribal dimension that may recall Wardruna, though without any ethnomusicological intent: Chimehours always remain within a fairy-tale and gothic imaginary, both narrative and ritual.

One of the album’s most solemn moments is “Look For Me,” a track that brings the duo closer to Dead Can Dance and their sense of ethnic music filtered through a dark and sacred sensibility. Thirty-six minutes that smell of woods, darkness, and solitude: a nature that offers no consolation, but amplifies fears, turning into a symbolic and mental space. Folk music that resurfaces from the earth in search of a new life.

A mature, coherent, and deeply evocative debut: a band that is definitely worth betting on.

13/01/2026