If this had been on vinyl, I’d have had to stop it and check the speed: the bass that begins the first track, ‘Entrance’ is so down-tuned as to sound like a 45 being played at 33. But it’s a CD, and slowly, synths wash in and build as the drums gain momentum to epic effect. It’s immediately clear that Sinier’s taken quite a leap from 2011’s ‘Guilty Cloaks’.
The sound is fuller, the songs more direct, and there’s an underlying air of confidence that drives ‘Welcome to My Orphanage’. There are still plenty of Sinier’s distinctive dark new wave tinged compositions to be found: the stark and brooding ‘The Good Ones’ and the twisted dub disco of the New Order-esque ‘Ruined Map’ are both taut and tense, but also graceful and majestic.
There’s a lot more to Sinier’s repertoire than dark atmospherics and cinematic sweeps. ‘A Million Years’ is built around a synth bass line, but is, to all intents and purposes, a straight ahead rock number – of the sort you might associate with the likes of Steve Miller, while ‘Cleaning Man’ takes a disco slant, while ‘Empty Shell’ calls to mind Talk Talk, but with the benefit of a deceptively funky bass. The ketamine-laced Krautrock of ‘Screws and Bandages’ leads the listener through a range of sonic terrains, as do the beautifully melancholic ‘My Orphanage’ and the dark pop workings of ‘The Fine Lines’.
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‘Anlogue Sh*t’ reveals Sinier’s more humourous side – at least in execution, as the ‘guest’ robot vocalist spits vitriolic social critique, and the instrumental closer, ‘Where You Are’ brings the album to an unsettling conclusion. In all, ‘Welcome to my Orphanage’ is a rounded, multi-faceted album that makes for a dark but uplifting listening experience.
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