Music Review: Himmel, A Long Cold Winter

By Jeffery X Martin

Luca Bluefire is the mastermind behind the dreampop project Himmel. Their debut album, A Long Cold Winter, is a fascinating mixture of New Wave nostalgia and modern psychedelia and even when it becomes overly derivative, it’s still worth a listen.

There are eight tracks on the album, two of which are instrumental. Bluefire only makes a couple of vocal appearances on the set, and the rest of the vocals are handled by different female singers.

The first track, “Reverie,” lives up to its title. The whole song sounds like slow motion diving, with Aurora Sebastiani providing the voice of the siren that lures the listener away from the shallows and into the depths. It’s not hard to get lost in the layers of this song, but be warned: it’s a trap. It isn’t completely indicative of the rest of the album, but it still draws you in further.

“Promises,” the next song, is built around a melancholy guitar riff, reminiscent of David Gilmour’s solo work. The vocals are by Mak Others. She either has a heavy Scandinavian accent or she’s singing English phonetically. Her voice is petulant and coy, and when the chorus gets heavy, which is an unexpected surprise, her stilted singing becomes a blunt instrument.

It’s around this part of the album that Luca Bluefire’s true inspirations begin to make themselves known. Underpinning every tune, and especially the track, “Give Me Life,” are delayed and echoed guitar riffs that sound like Porl Thompson’s work with The Cure. Thank goodness for that guitar work, too; Lola de Hanna’s vocals are nasal, the least desirable aspect of the song.

That Cure influence carries throughout A Long Cold Winter, particularly in “The Dark,” which is the stand-out track. Singer Millie Gaum sounds like a Northern English Liz Phair. Her voice gives the tune a decidedly lo-fi Girlysound feel, even though she is surrounded by swirling keyboards and that sweet repetitive Cure-esque guitar. It may not be Exile in Himmelville, but it’s absolutely Synth-smart.

This journey into the Nineties is singular, though, as the rest of the album celebrates the previous decade. The instrumental track, “Magneto,” sounds like a supergroup consisting of Howard Jones and members of When in Rome. You almost expect to see Jake Ryan show up to give sweet Samantha Baker her sweet sixteen birthday present.

When Bluefire takes the vocals, his voice is strangely tuneless. In the song, “Shatter,” it becomes more textural than narrative, and he buries his own voice deep in the mix. It feels like a nod to Tubeway Army, which makes sense within the context of the album, yet the blandness of the song sticks out. Let’s call it mediocre dark.

Himmel even visits Wire on the track, “Blackest Hearts,” featuring Jason Bradley performing spoken word, lamenting the breakdown of our mechanized, industrialized world. The irony of that sentiment on such a highly synthesized album is obvious.

A Long Cold Winter is a conflicted piece of work. While it is modern enough to warrant college radio airplay, the album itself comes off as a Robert Smith tribute. The word, “Himmel,” as the press release mentions, means “sky.” Bluefire may have been going for an airy spacious sound, but in reality it’s claustrophobic and waterlogged.

The album isn’t a failure. There’s some gorgeous music here. There’s also a lot of promise that won’t truly be fulfilled until Bluefire cuts the apron strings to the past and uses his obviously vast knowledge of music history to carve out something more original and authentic.

A Long Cold Winter was released on April 24 and is available on Bandcamp.