Album Review: And Your Song Is Like A Circle by Skullcrusher

Helen Ballentine's stage name Skullcrusher braces listeners for fierce, fiery metal, but the reality behind the moniker is haunting folk vignettes defined by ethereal, floaty vocals. Her second album, And Your Song Is Like a Circle, grapples with dissociation, blurred identity and grief. The desperate search for meaning running through the veins of this record makes itself heard immediately; on opener March, Ballentine asks bluntly, 'What do I live for?' The question seeps through the album, forcing us to search for answers ourselves.

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The New-York based artist doesn't trade in thrash metal. There are no shredding guitars or double-kicks anywhere in sight. Helen Ballentine's music is haunting indie folk, a bit like a sigh in a dream, but still powerful, with her voice at its emotional centre. Five years into her recording career, she continues to focus on fleeting impressions of grief, memory, and longing - experiences rather than actual events - but she is now moving towards a more expansive, ethereal sound.

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"What do I live for? Who do I live for? I don't know anymore," asks Helen Ballantine, aka Skullcrusher, during the opening chimes of her second full-length. Written in the mire of a series of great changes for the songwriter - including a move across the US from her adopted home of Los Angeles to upstate New York, and an extended period of solitude - 'And Your Song Is Like A Circle' is a devastating rumination on life, grief and purpose, bearing layers that quietly unfurl with every listen. A record that manages to feel sparse and rich all at once, its sonics are mesmerising - take the rolling waves that crash in the background of 'March''s close, or the ethereal 'Changes', with its finger-plucked guitar line heightening its quiet delicacy.

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