Brighton-based cinematic experimenter Third Bloom teams up with the ever-unclassifiable Mishkin Fitzgerald on Archive. This album does a slow pan across a ruined landscape of memory. With electronic and classical music, shaped with a soundtrack composerโs instinct, Archive imagines a post-apocalyptic Britain where nothing familiar survives except echoes. Itโs heavy stuff, sure, but itโs delivered with such care and beauty that youโre drawn in.
What makes Archive so absorbing is how wordless it often is. Instead of lyrics spelling things out, the album lets atmosphere do the talking. Lush orchestration rubs shoulders with ghostly electronics, and every sound feels deliberately placed, like fragments retrieved from a half-forgotten dream. Mishkin Fitzgeraldโs influence brings a fragile, human tenderness to the project, while Third Bloomโs visual-artist mindset keeps everything cinematic and slightly unsettling. Guest appearances from violinist Hana Piranha and guitarist Garry Mitchell deepen the emotional palette, adding grit and drama without breaking the spell.
The album opens ominously with โClaw, Pt. 1,โ where a dark, ambient haze hangs thick in the air. Just as you settle into its haunted calm, a sharp, buzzing, glitzy hiss slices through like a warning signal, then vanishes towards the end, leaving the emptiness behind to echo louder than before. Later on, โDark Horse, Pt. 1โ leans into pure theatricality, with swelling, emotive strings rising and falling over a brooding undercurrent, as if something monumental is about to happen but never quite arrives. By the time โErosionโ rolls in, the mood turns more mechanical and uneasy. A mecha-like rhythm grinds forward while somber strings trail behind, sounding worn down, fragile, and resigned.
Archive invites you to sit with loss, memory, and the strange beauty of what remains after everything else has gone quiet.
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Review by: Naomi Joan