Amoeba Music

Unison is Julien Camarena and Melanie Moran. They are the leaders of French Witch House! I first heard them when I listened to the track "Brothers & Sisters." Sometimes I like a song so much that I tend to listen to it over and over again. I usually wear it out. But I can't get over this song. It's that good. I really wish this album had come out on a larger label and had gotten more exposure. This album deserves for more people to listen to it. It is dark and ethereal and haunting. Beautiful vocals over 80s 4AD type musical styles. I can hear obvious influences of Cocteau Twins and Lush.

Unison’s brand of beat-heavy darkness cakes layers and layers of noise over pretty melodies in such an over-the-top manner, the metaphors seem endless: Does singer Melanie Moran sound like an angel escaping Hell? Do they sound like a battle of the bands winner at Gryffindor, if not Mordor? Whatever fantastical scenario appears in your head when the six minutes of metal guitars, shoegaze vocals and heavy beats of Unison’s “Lost Generation” plays, it’s something not of this world. “Brothers & Sisters” clears up the din for a bit of grabby industrial pop, and the breathy melodies of “Outside” make it a more distorted cousin of Grimes or dancier kin to Sleigh Bells. But this is largely pretty singular stuff — though they’re associated with the “witch house” genre, including bands like Salem and Pictureplane, it’s debatable if such a scene or genre really exists. Lots of people, from ambient fans to black metal fans and lots of those in between, will flock to Unison and find you don’t need a jokey genre tag when music this powerful and indescribable speaks for itself.