Album Review: Bark Psychosis - Hex

Bark Psychosis released their debut album Hex in 1994.  It opens with the stately piano of The Loom which sounds like they took their lead from Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock and infused it with an almost classical music direction.  A Street Scene is more dissonant but the ebb and flow of the shimmering Absent Friends is one of the more engaging tracks here.  

Vocals are kept to a fairly minimal level on this album, acting more as an accompanying instrument than a focal point.  A kind of feeling of dread, of unease permeates Big Shot.  Tracks like Fingerspit and the liquid guitar lines of Eyes & Smiles are quite forbidding and unyielding with many layers to get your head around, while instrumental closer Pendulum Man is a fine ten minutes of ambient music.  It's a pretty immersive yet inscrutable album, one for the wee small hours I suspect.