“Dream Drowning” by TRAITRS

However much you might like The Cure, odds are you don’t like them even half as much as TRAITRS’ Sean-Patrick Nolan and Shawn Tucker do. On their latest album, POSSESSOR, the Toronto-based coldwave duo consistently evokes the specter of the world’s most beloved goth band with icy synths, spidery guitar figures, and Tucker’s plaintive wail and lyrics, which deal with desire, the vagaries of love, and in the case of “Prayertaker,” heavier topics like religious abuse.

That specter looms especially large on “Dream Drowning,” an existential nightmare of a song that begins with creeping synths and spectral guitars that distinctly recall “A Forest,” arguably the Cure song. But it’s to Nolan and Tucker’s credit that their song is no mere rip-off. Rather, as “Dream Drowning” builds in intensity, with Tucker crying out “I’m dreaming of you dying/Through your eyes/But I can’t heal myself/No, I can’t kill myself again,” it very much becomes its own thing, and obviously an incredibly personal tale based on Tucker’s own experiences.

The above is true for the rest of POSSESSOR, as well. Nolan and Tucker never ignore or downplay their obvious influences, or try to move past them. Instead, they evoke them completely, and use them as a language for telling their own affecting and deeply personal stories.

POSSESSOR is currently available.