Sam Marandola sounds fragile yet gritty on the new Oldest Sea single “All Shall Love Me And Despair” like Marianne Faithful taking over an abandoned music hall. In that hall assembling a group of musicians to haunt it with gorgeously gloomy sounds: lingering piano chords and pulses of strings, heartbeat percussion and other vocals joining the leads later in the song for a net effect like a quiet epic of impending doom. The title is perhaps borrowed from the line when in The Lord of the Rings Galadriel is offered the One Ring by Frodo and then utters those words in the end when she knows she can reject its dark temptation. The song, though, seems to be about being tempted by despair and self-loathing written in terms of personal mythology and manifested as one’s own demons and struggling with self-oppression mixed with the feedback and interactions outside one’s own head. The moods, textures and the style is a kind of Gothic folk akin to a darker cousin to Dead Can Dance and the song gets into your head with its fascinating, orchestral progressions and emotionally charged atmosphere. Listen to “All Shall Love Me And Despair” on Spotify and follow Oldest Sea on Instagram.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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