Cronin, Claire

***Old radios. Ritual bells. A cawing crow. A mother singing in the darkness. These figures haunt The Bruise—the new album of heavy folk songs from musician and writer Claire Cronin.

Her third release on Orindal Records after Big Dread Moon (2019) and Bloodless (2021), and crafted in the same spirit as her cult-favorite book, Blue Light of the Screen: On Horror, Ghosts, and God (2020), The Bruise is an immersive sequel in Cronin’s brand of folk horror.

Inspired by the atmospheres of doom metal and the spectral, disintegrating layers of avant-garde drone music, The Bruise is evocative and textured, but still centered on Cronin’s voice and guitar. Vocals are tripled with eerie harmonies, like sad angels singing. Electric guitars are bent to sound like old radio transmissions. The warm, spiritual hum of a harmonium spills across tracks. An Irish bodhrán keeps time at loose intervals. Musical saws, ritual bells, and violas make the weather that Cronin’s voice wades through.