By: Jackie Lo

If you like: Glixen, Land of Talk, Chelsea Wolfe, A Perfect Circle

Farmer’s Wife, formerly known as “Sludge”, a “dream grunge band” from Austin, Texas, released their Faint Illusions EP today with 5 new songs of swirly guitars, sludge-y sounds, and whimsical lyrics. Their first EP There’s a Monster released in the fall of 2023 and this sophomore EP is grittier and full of darker fantasies. It doesn’t hurt that I’m fully immersed in Sarah J. Maas’s book A Court Of Mist And Fury full of fairies and magic and fighting that I smiled through the entire first listen of this EP thinking it could be the soundtrack to this fantasy series.

It opens with “Dirty Shirley” with a repetitive dark bass tone paired with a dirty grunge guitar reminiscent of the feeling I got the first time I heard Nirvana’s “Drain You” but with a sweet feminine voice dripping of poison.  It’s followed by “Seethe” with dark swells and a vocal melody reminiscent of something off A Perfect Circle’s first album. “Mildew” is next and is my favorite track on the EP.  It’s also the first single off the album full of a chunky bass/guitar line that could have come from Melvin’s Houdini album with a powerfully delicate vocal delivery reminiscent of Land of Talk or Alvvays. “The Ballet” follows and is more whimsical, playful and with a dark undertone in lines like, “Walking down the sunset, the stars are in the street.One pocket full of posies, one pocket full of meat.” “Discount Roses” ends the album with a shoegaze infused dreamy track that feels a little more uplifting and resolved from the rest of the EP.  Whatever journey this EP has taken you through, it’s tied up nicely on this last track about love and death and the afterlife.

If you like sludgy dark tones and subject matter fed to you by a beautiful voice or want to know what grunge and shoegaze would sound like if they had a lovely cunning daughter then Farmer’s Wife is the band for you. Faint Illusions will have you nodding your head in the pit then walking alone in the forest on a quest all while feeling like you’re the lead in a fantasy novel of your own writing.