Album Review: Let's Eat Grandma - I'm All Ears

Following the twisted fairy-tale world of their 2016 debut, I, Gemini, English goth-pop duo Let's Eat Grandma sally once more into the woods of youth and femininity for a second effort that exceeds expectations.

I'm All Ears is more polished, but just as eclectic and eccentric. For Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton, it's more about attention to detail than a kitchen sink approach; a unity of vision and structure see the album transcend the sum of its myriad parts.

It's why the dancefloor beats and synth stabs of Falling Into Me can give way to cascades of fingerpicked guitar and even a saxophone solo without sacrificing coherency. Or why Hot Pink, which is straightforward pop (albeit with the odd deranged flourish) can sit alongside Snakes & Ladders, whose slow-build power chords and F-bombs flirt with hard rock, and the pared-back piano ballad Ava, with all sounding distinctively Let's Eat Grandma.

I'm All Ears is punctuated by three brief-but-demented instrumental tracks: the strings-and-synths Whitewater could be from an '80s slasher film; Missed Call (1) sounds like a chamber orchestra on acid; The Cat's Pyjamas has an organ and a salivitic cat's purr. These provide a foil to the album's two proggy showpieces: Cool & Collected and Donnie Darko, which clock in at nine- and 11-plus minutes respectively and epitomise the duo's masterful manipulations of mood and texture.