Troller emerged from Austin's synth music scene during the early 2010s with an alarmingly refreshing take on the darkwave genre. The songs on the trio's self-titled debut are sad, heavy, and haunted, with blurry, ethereal vocals, gritty bass guitar, and dark clouds of atmospheric synths over slowly ticking drum machines. Pacing is crucial for this album, as these songs need to slowly unfold in order to take full effect. The songs perfectly convey feelings of loss, disappointment, and crushing hopelessness in the most gorgeous way possible. Quite simply, this is what witch house could've been if it didn't seem like some gimmicky Internet meme or fashion statement. The album's highlight, "Tiger," sounds like the theme song to the senior prom of a high school populated with zombies. "Winter" seems to gaze out at the world from the confines of shadows, and is almost as lovely. In between the songs are ambient drone interludes that reflect the group's love of horror film scores (one of
Troller's members is also in the astounding
John Carpenter-esque quartet
S U R V I V E). ~ Paul Simpson