Emma Ruth Rundle

★★★★ Engine Of Hell SARGENT HOUSE. CD/DL/LP

Versatile alt-rocker proves just as potent in spartan, piano-based mode.

Formerly guitarist for postrockers Red Sparowes (sic) and Marriages, since 2011 Emma Ruth Rundle has charted an eclectic path through electrifying, folkinflected rock, ambient experimentalism and a sensesstunning collaboration with doom metallers Thou. Engine

Of Hell sees the Californian singer-songwriter ditch her signature expansive arrangements for an eightsong set of piano-framed ballads that dig deep into youthful memories. This newfound instrumental austerity can be forbidding at first, but repeated spins reveal lyrically acute portraits of grieving a family member during childhood (Body); a loved one battling addiction (Blooms Of Oblivion, cut with acoustic guitar and violin); and, less ominously, enjoying music with a friend (Dancing Man). Rundle has written movingly on social media of struggling with pandemic enforced isolation, and the quietly majestic Return, with its poetic allusions to loss and loneliness, will resonate with many who have felt the same. Manish Agarwal