"Australia's Orbweavers are a five-piece who have been described as playing folk-noir or alt-country music. However neither label quite does justice to a finely crafted, dreamy and atmospheric album in which Marita Dyson and Stuart Flanagan's vocals are ably supplemented by crisp, often low key arrangements of acoustic and electric guitars, augmented by bass, trumpet and violin and, albeit sparingly, drums.
The ethereal feel of this impressive debut is mostly propelled by Dyson's breathy, echo-enhanced vocals, which lends a hugely evocative feel to proceedings. The tracks on which Flanagan sings tend on the whole to be a bit more straight-ahead but are no less enjoyable. The Orbweavers draw on a variety of musical styles with strains of light jazz and mariarchi mixing with the acid-folk and alt-country influences to heady effect. Such influences are used so intelligently, however, that they lend the album an identity all of its own.
Standout tracks include the openers "Vitus" and "My Needle" and the Flanagan voiced "Met Her on My Way Home" and "Fairy Tales" but you could just as easily pick four other tracks that are just as good, which underlines the strength of "Graphite and Diamonds". Such is the narcotic effect of this fine album you occasionally wonder whether you might nod out or fancy something different, but there is more than enough quality here to keep the listener mesmerised and wanting more. If Alice in Wonderland were ever to be filmed in the desert against a modern backdrop, then the soundtrack really ought to sound like this.
File under "sublime and rewarding." (Ian Fraser)"