Considering the indubitable popularity of recent empyrean
voiced beauties such as Zola Jesus and Tamaryn, it is as frustrating as it is
fascinating that the Brooklyn-based brainchild of Zohra Atash, Religious To
Damn, is not the online pin-up of Pitchfork or headlining Hackney based festivals
that champion themselves on their cutting-edgeness.
Alas, it appears that the everlasting romance between
Religious To Damn and the music press was never meant to be. With the scarcity of
critics that took their time to review the band’s 2010 debut album ‘Glass
Prayer’ denoting, and therefore degrading, the record as ‘Kate Bush without the
weird’.
Despite the infant vilifying ‘Glass Prayer’ may have received,
Religious To Damn resurrected their career in January of this year with their
aesthetically Broadcast influenced ‘Lovely Day’. (which you can watch after the
jump.) The four and a half minute track,
that in-corporates a subtle blissed-out guitar as well as swooping synth-pads, enchantedly
glides along, almost as if it was the mysterious Ouija-board wielding grand-daughter
of the illustrious Lou Reed classic.
Despite this beautiful come-back single, Religious To Damn
still continue to be as under-rated as the film adaption of Twin Peaks, which
is a crying shame as front-woman Zohra has just as much poise and vocal ability
as Julee Cruise. We can only hope that Religious To Damn become a cult in
decades to come or ‘do a Grimes’ and orbit away from obscurity on their third
album, God knows they deserve it.