Daughter of the Sea

Daughter of the Sea, the second album from Rey Villalobos’ solo project House of Wolves, creates an even more somber and lush atmosphere than the debut Fold in the Wind. The album was recorded on the east coast of Ireland, and the tracks are beguilingly simple, with a lingering eerie beauty that’s evocative of the surrounding Irish landscape, of foggy plains and craggy dolmens, of ghosts and memories long dead. The songs sound like those of a lonely man pining after ghosts, or perhaps a lonely ghost pining after those left behind.

The album opens with ‘Beautiful Things’ with its elegantly morose piano and air of noir-ish romanticism. It’s a song about those fleeting little moments, the everyday beauty that we too often miss. Next track, ‘Daughter Of the Sea’, is soft and delicate, with a strange dream-like intimacy, appearing to tell the story of the narrator’s love of a girl from the sea. (“She is / the daughter of the sea / coursing in me / haunting me”). ‘Martians’ teams subtle rumbling drums with strange lyrics (“Remember the martians will wreck your face”) with staccato chorus (“Before. I. Will. Fall. Down. In. Your. Little. Town.”). ‘Take Me to the Others’ opens with sparse guitar and birdsong, before blooming into a fragile but defiant tale of the ending of something and remaining your true self through what that can bring. Villalobos’ vocals begin as a restrained croon, but gathers volume and intensity towards the end as he sings. ‘Rain’, a short incantation intended to summon dark clouds, is backed with plaintive acoustics guitars and minimal percussion. Closer ‘Just Shy of Survival’ is led by gloomy piano which spikes in urgency through the track’s middle section, accompanied by Villalobos’ vocals, which sound more desperate than at any other point on the album. The song, and indeed the record, then ends in the sound of rainfall.