A.A. Williams performs vocals, piano, electric guitar and cello on this record, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it because nothing showy is drawing attention to the technical achievement underneath. The instrumentation is poised, purposeful and concerned with power through simplicity rather than a display of complexity, with uncomplicated melodies and the piano moving with the beat to play a constant pulse. Gothic music in the lineage of Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads, Solstice sounds like Conan or Sleep filtered through the intimacy of a classical recital and the emotional weight of a magnificent stage play.

This is Williams’ third album, containing eleven tracks in fifty eight minutes, with most of the songs veering between intimate piano led passages and huge towering guitars that arrive with the force of a tidal wave. There isn’t a great range stylistically, and yet these slow, grand songs completely sustain your attention, which is a remarkable achievement for music this patient and simple. The songs are powerful and extremely well written. When Wolves crashes into the chorus the faith in the simplicity of the music is breathtaking, with drums playing a funeral march and towering guitars. I’ve Seen Enough stays intimate with a heart-wrenchingly beautiful melody closing the song, and The Veil is similarly entrancing. It Won’t Rain Forever has guitars that sound like Sunn O))) but keeps coming back to intimate piano passages, and Breathe recalls Lankum in the way it draws out the refrain for minutes getting gradually louder and more powerful. The Gentle Harm closes the album with a colossal finish, and Williams’ vocal performance is theatrical in the way that a very intense and serious play is with immense control, and power that comes entirely from restraint rather than showiness. Magnificently composed music, rich and dark and black and purple, enveloping and patient.