Artefact assembled in Cardiff around late 2014 and debuted in early 2015 with a seven-song demo cassette. Featuring Hannah Saunders on vocals, Matthew Green on guitar, Jon Mohajer on bass and Danny Parsons on drums, members' musical CVs span indiepop (Joanna Gruesome), post-hardcore (Facel Vega), emo (Plaids), garage punk (Twisted) and slowcore (Mars To Stay). This collective experience has certainly informed Artefact, in terms of how they operate and conduct themselves, but it should equally be seen as a clean break, and a chance to indulge their tastes for postpunk, goth, deathrock and the darker side of the tracks in general. Saunders - the only one of the quartet to be playing in a band for the first time - is a great and mercurial presence at the microphone, ramping up the drama and emotion running through 'Votive Offering'. Her lyrics are suitably, poetically intriguing, heavy with alliteration and wordplay and spiked with literary and historical references. They meet their perfect match across these ten songs: rolling rhythms built from tom-heavy drums and punchy basslines, waves of ear-ringing chorus-pedal guitar, an ability to switch tempos from a brisk clip to a funereally slow march. Anyone whose tastes include foundation stones of goth such as Siouxsie & The Banshees or Bauhaus; The Mob, Part 1 and other names from the gloomier end of 1980s anarcho punk; or contemporary burners of the flame like Belgrado, Arctic Flowers or Anasazi. Artefact have made an album for you to fall in love with too.
