New band of the week: Evvol (No 44)

Hometown: Berlin/Dublin/Sydney.

The lineup: Julie Chance (vocals), Jon Dark (guitar), Valentin Plessy (drums).

The background: Evvol were, until recently, known as Kool Thing, and they released an album and toured with Grimes and Austra and Peaches. They still comprise Irish singer Julie Chance, her partner – Australian guitarist Jon Dark – and their French touring live drummer Valentin Plessy. They’ve now got this new name and a new musical approach, which debuts on the album Eternalism, lined up for May release. If you want to do a compare and contrast with the Kool Thing record, it’s on Spotify. Only we’re too stuck on this new one to bother. Eternalism is dark synth pop, according to their Soundcloud, and that goes some way towards describing it. It’s arty electronica with an 80s feel, and it’s not just synths but guitars and beats too. It’s nocturnal, swirling and atmospheric, but more tuneful than droning. These are noir moodscapes you can dance to.

I See You (I Am You) suggests a rave All About Eve. Sola has an aura of churchy solemnity and choral vocals. Is that a panpipe or a flute? Either way, it’s atypical for the rock milieu. The music is repetitive in a good way: like a mantra or incantation. Starcrossed is echoey, haunted, like a dream in which Madonna falls backwards in slow motion. “I’ll take care of you,” they sing, making it sound like a threat. Your Love opens with strange, horror movie-like keyboard notes and has some of the enigmatic exotica of Bowie singing about Arabia in Berlin. No Love reminds us of that great mid-80s German band, Propaganda, who were described at the time as “Abba in hell”.

There is a sense here of a highly commercial pop group put through a Germanic filter. Think an arthouse Clannad. Vega may well be a hymn to the band Suicide – it’s sort of like witch house reconfigured for a funeral march. Denouement is a lovely, stately, sombre thing, the sound of a ghostly femme fatale appearing through dry ice at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof at night. The voice is just a spectre in the mist. It’s like Slowdive if they weren’t shoe-gaze, minus everything but the guitar haze. Even their b-sides and extra tracks are worth a punt. There’s one on the Soundcloud accompanying this piece called Release Me which is like an enervated, deathly pallid version of 80s Fleetwood Mac, and another called We Are Here, which is almost industrial, with voices and the clanging of machinery in the mix. It makes us think of Enya singing with Einstürzende Neubaten, a very pleasant – that is to say, divinely dissonant – thought indeed.

The buzz: “Fusing textured, atmospheric guitars, ominous synths, vicious beats and layered glacier vocals” – Dazed & Confused.

The truth: They’re the best Franco-Australian-Irish band we’ve heard in ages.

Most likely to: Haunt.

Least likely to: Taunt.

What to buy: The single No Love is released on 30 March by Mad Dog & Love Records, followed by the album Eternalism on 18 May.

File next to: Maria Minerva, Propaganda, Clannad, Slowdive.

Link: soundcloud.com/evvol.

Ones to watch: Fever Dream, Young Professionals, Thomston, Beach Baby, Leon Bridges.