Volkova Sisters

This is gloriously odd. Volkova Sisters are a Hungarian band, named after characters in a science fiction novel, making fantastically inventive music that lurches between darkwave, industrial and stoner-esque rock. It feels intensely claustrophobic; all darkness and a lingering, malignant sense of threat.

‘Last Song Of The Dying Fly’ is the standout here, but you can stream the whole EP below. - The Line Of Best Fit

Their surnames are not Volkova, and they are not sisters. Indeed, two of them have beards.

But this is where the deceptions end. From the out-of-focus opening guitar lick to the whispers of Antony Hegarty’s baroque synesthesia, this is a drought-lifting votive that only a southerner could recognize. The album name couldn’t be any more of a misnomer — Venus? Robot? — as the landscapes here are impeccably terrestrial, and the electronica, warm, analogue, all-too-human. “Last Song Of The Dying Fly” is quite fly, nagyon köszönöm, and bluesy, too: half Budapest, half Budweiser. You’ll pick up a whiff of OK Computer in that track, and the thought of gunslinger-turned-programmer is a fitting one for navigating these roads.

“Dancing Around The Fire” is not the prairie bacchanal implied by the title, and more to the point, this might be the most rave-ready track on the collection. “I Could Have Known” and “Black mountain” are sludgy almost to the point of punk, and the quivering verse of the former lends it a distinctly bedlam feel. That is, until the Sisters bring the funk for the latter two-thirds of the song. None of these decisions could have been easy, and none should be taken lightly. But here is an easy decision: shortlisted for EP of the year. - The Muse In Music