It's possible Gorgeous Children's self-titled debut arrived at an inopportune time for the duo from Denver. As I noted in my write-up of the debut, occultism was trending hard in rap music, but for most of the artists incorporating the symbols of the darkside into their music it was a passing fancy. Gorgeous Children's ICE EP explores a blacker black arts.
If there are any lingering opinions that Gila Monster was copycatting Spaceghostpurrrp, the ICE EP will eradicate the assumption. He's taken full ownership of his style on the EP. He pushes the Gorgeous Children sound beyond the pedestrian sounds of horror scores, the pacing atmospheric and slow without falling into the realm of screwed. With plenty of room to operate, Face Vega's whispered flow meshes into the terror timbre. Over the backspun psychedelic strings on “Major Waves” he's watcing Scarface backwards, which at first reads as confusing statement, until he reveals the intent later, “died in the first act, then I came back.” For every derivative that might have existed on the debut, any stylistic choice that could be attributed to outside influence, the ICE EP consciously trims the fat for a blackened minimalism that cannot be mistaken as anything but Gorgeous Children.
Gorgeous Children's ICE EP is out now on VASE.
