Picture Ann – “Mountains, Myth, and Murder” [Bandcamp Album Stream]

The Skinny: Mountains, Myth, and Murder, the fourth full-length incantation by the Danish experimental metal act Picture Ann, is available for download and streaming on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. Musically and lyrically, the album covers quite a lot of ground and yet the main themes associated with Picture Ann, namely longing and loneliness, are always at the forefront and course through the veins of this cursed thing at all times. Forlorn melodies, hypnotic riffs, awful synthesizers, and a total lack of production; it is all there for the taking. It will ruin your day and leave you somewhere terrible, but is that not what we all want and desire anyway?

While the trilogy (“Mountains”, “Myth”, and “Murder”) is a moody and haunting exploration of the German expedition to Tibet in 1938-1939, other tunes explore the nameless guilt that is present in Edgar Allan Poe’s timeless writings (“Dystopian Logic”), the Royal Conspiracy theory in relation to Jack the Ripper (“The Abberline Diary That Never Was”), and the soothing effect of listening to Marianne Faithfull’s nicotine-stained voice on a melancholy night in June while mending old wounds (“Gasmask Ballet – The Extended Cut”). All songs were composed, recorded, and left un-mixed by J.N. on stormy nights.