No strangers to the melodramatic, when they made their debut with Like The Exorcist, But More Breakdancing, here is an Indiana quartet with the Frontier America look and a vocalist whose waterlogged baritone must have spent a past life locked in the bowels of an ocean liner.
"Wild West saloons, swashbuckling pirates, haunted houses and a nod to Johnny Cash, it's fair to say it's not Emo, " says Fibbers boss Tim Hornsby, who welcomes the grimly named Murder By Death to York on Sunday.
Over to the band: "We write dark music, but we're not super serious gothic, " say the quartet from Bloomington, whose gothic snapshots of middle Americana are laced with a hint of bluegrass and threaded with glorious vignettes of the underbelly of life.
Adam Turla, vocals and guitar, Sarah Balliet, cello and keys, Alex Schrodt, percussion, and Matt Armstrong, create rumbling, drink-hazed scenes of sin, redemption and guilt with an insouciant musical swagger and whiskeysoaked lyricism, as heard on their third album, released last month on Cooking Vinyl.
Their debut output in Britain, the album is entitled In Bocca Al Lupo, which translates roughly as "in the mouth of the wold", an old Italian phrase of luck and challenge.
"If you're more than a little preoccupied with mystery, macabre and theatrics, you should see this, " says Tim.
Support from We Are The Black Lights and Bo$$Caine.
Tickets: £5 advance, £6 door.
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