WOMB

Purity Ring’s third album is a shimmering escape, and as good a self-isolation soundtrack as you’re likely to find.

There is no doubting the power Roddick and James are wielding on ‘Womb’. The talent of Purity Ring as songwriters, instrumentalists and visionaries is clear to see.

WOMB feels like a more mature and maternal approach to these pains—and even a course to find healing—while still keeping true to their sound.

The electro-pop duo’s first album in five years muses on bodies, blood, and a girl’s coming of age; it benefits from the group’s newfound musical maturity and more exacting editorial eye.

Womb contains a world that is by nature red in tooth and claw, and Purity Ring have found a way to marvel at every single aspect of the experience.

WOMB almost feels like Purity Ring reopening the time capsule they left in 2012 and reacquainting themselves with the contents. A lot of familiar elements fuel the momentum, and they sound as immaculate today as they did in 2012.

The wait may have been long, but the results are mature and compassionate enough to justify it.

Ultimately WOMB feels like the most minor letdown because it lacks the novel, inventive aura that they once captured.

WOMB’s focus on atmospheric synth is the modern-day iteration of classical, and a breath of fresh air from the fast and loud electric sounds of today’s hits.

Subtle experiments pay off on Purity Ring's eerie, macabre third album – though you may sometimes wish they’d surprise you more.

‘WOMB’ isn’t quite the modern reinvention it should be.

There’s very little room for light and shade amongst their wall of cavernous synths, and while this can generate an evocative mood  it can sometimes feel like James and Roddick are happy to operate within their comfort zone.

What it lacks in consistency, it makes up for with tentative experimentation giving a look at what Purity Ring’s fourth album might look like, and what exactly they have been up to in the past five years.

There is magic here, and a refinement where digitally-treated voice and electronic wizardy are perfectly matched.