Widow Blades

Recording information: Tone Gulley (2010).Photographer: Oliver Farthing.Enigmatic post-rock duo Reigns, aka West Country brothers Roo and Tim Farthing, have previously recorded albums in a bottomless hole found in the Somerset Downs, a submerged village flooded to make way for a new reservoir, and an abandoned house at the end of a man-made causeway. So it comes as no surprise that their fourth record, The Widow Blades, came to fruition in equally atypical circumstances. A concept album based on the true story of a woman who disappeared during a blizzard in 1978, the follow-up to 2009's The House on the Causeway was recorded at several locations the widower was said to have visited during her last fateful day, only furthering the sense of foreboding that creeps around its 11 haunting tracks. Indeed, with dulcimer-led lullaby "Vessels" the only number that would feel out of place on a Lynch-ian horror outing, it's certainly not a record to be listened to alone in the dark. The unsettlin