PHANTOM

"Starting out in sparse chiming guitars territory, Elsie's vocal and organ backing kicks in turning the foreboding up another couple of notches. The songs highlight is a middle eight that allows Elsie to repeat the question-raising phrase "You modern boys are so so old" before the subtle industrial machinations and drums kick in again for a climactic end and the slow decay of the track."
- Q Magazine "Voodoo Romantic" TRACK OF THE DAY August 2010

"Sweeping through creaky corners and dark streets, Great Pretender is a seductive track indeed. Too calm to cause a havoc, too theatrical to be ignored, its eeriness battle for prominence with arty rock-noir and dystopian lyrics of "I am a thief/I am a liar", courtesy of the Morrissey-reflecting Elsie Martins. An inspirational track from this up-and-coming band, it's possibly the aural equivalent of a black cat sneaking across silk sheets in the melodramatic mansion of a slightly eccentric painter."
- Q Magazine "Great Pretender" TRACK OF THE DAY September 2009


"With nods towards Roxy Music, The Velvet Underground and Nick Cave, the band have been getting a lot of attention recently. It’s even been suggested that listening to them is the aural equivalent of watching a David Lynch film – praise indeed!"
- Classic Rock Magazine "Voodoo Romantic" TRACK OF THE DAY August 2010



" Sprawling gothic soundscapes, with singer Elsie Martins' ethereal warblings subsumed in Hammer Horror organs and Lynchian gloom, not a million miles from the hellish guitar-driven wastelands of Svarte Greiner or Willian Fowler Collins. Moody and hugely ambitious...this is the sound of happy nightmares." 7/10
- Rock Sound Magazine Album Review "Smoke & Mirrors" September 2010


"Think Eno’s best work with Roxy Music, then replace Brian Ferry with a comely chanteuse”. - My Old Kentuky Magazine "Smoke & Mirrors" Album Review September 2010

"…able to approach songwriting in a manner somewhere between film soundtrack composers and gleeful dada experimentalists, while at the same time never sacrificing accessibility or dramatic structure...Measure by measure, drop by drop, Elsie Martin is redefining London Gothic for the second decade of the twenty-first century" - The Quietus Magazine, "Smoke & Mirrors" Album Review September 2010

"Phantom should be huge. Fact. Superficially in the same bracket as Goldfrapp, La Roux and Florence & The Machine, this Canadian/British duo show them all exactly how to construct a beautiful, modern electronic album. The combination of ethereal vocals and lush e-bowed guitars over a dense treated background is deftly executed by the pair, a soundscape that lands them somewhere between Portishead and Cocteau Twins." - The Digital Fix Magazine, "Smoke & Mirrors" Album Review September 2010
"Phantom are skilled at crafting mood pieces that are sometimes sinister and menacing, at other times enticing and seductive. In fact, it's their recognition that attraction and danger often seem to come together that makes Smoke And Mirrors such a beguiling album." - Music OMH Magazine, "Smoke & Mirrors" Album Review September 2010

"Like a female Morrissey fronting the Bad Seeds". - Extreme Listening Mode

"Dark and subtly textured, moodily atmospheric soundscapes." - Time Out London

"The music they create has a very visual quality, bringing to mind Ennio Morricone soundtracks or Tarantino-esque scenarios." - Artrocker Magazine


- Various

"Voodoo Romantic" TRACK OF THE DAY August 2010

"With nods towards Roxy Music, The Velvet Underground and Nick Cave, the band have been getting a lot of attention recently. It’s even been suggested that listening to them is the aural equivalent of watching a David Lynch film – praise indeed!" - Classic Rock Magazine

Sept 2010 "Voodoo Romantic" Track of the Day
"Starting out in sparse chiming guitars territory, Elsie's vocal and organ backing kicks in turning the foreboding up another couple of notches. The songs highlight is a middle eight that allows Elsie to repeat the question-raising phrase "You modern boys are so so old" before the subtle industrial machinations and drums kick in again for a climactic end and the slow decay of the track."


"Great Pretender" TRACK OF THE DAY September 2009
"Sweeping through creaky corners and dark streets, Great Pretender is a seductive track indeed. Too calm to cause a havoc, too theatrical to be ignored, its eeriness battle for prominence with arty rock-noir and dystopian lyrics of "I am a thief/I am a liar", courtesy of the Morrissey-reflecting Elsie Martins. An inspirational track from this up-and-coming band, it's possibly the aural equivalent of a black cat sneaking across silk sheets in the melodramatic mansion of a slightly eccentric painter."


- Q Magazine