There is no reason for GHOSTWOMAN’s fourth album to exist. Welcome to the Civilized World is born to a broken world; a corrupt inheritance – Evan Uschenko and Ille van Dessel are under no illusions about its futility – and yet, this thing is alive. It’s an allergic reaction to the times we are living in: a welt that screams to be itched, the purging of a modern sickness they could no longer stomach. Beyond rationality, this record came from a place of gut feeling and a lack of any other option. Hell may have cracked wide open – but GHOSTWOMAN will not go quietly.

GHOSTWOMAN itself only exists because Uschenko and van Dessel were the ones “stupid enough to commit to it”. Conceived by Uschenko after cutting his teeth as a touring multi-instrumentalist, the project was brought to life in an abandoned farmhouse in Diamond City, Alberta. There, for two months, he would make the self-released, self-titled debut album which was produced and dubbed directly to custom-made cassette tapes. The music has always been beautifully inhospitable, earned only by those curious enough to seek it out. Expanded by friends on the Edmonton circuit, Uschenko took the project over the pond where he would meet drummer Ille van Dessel. Drawn to her talent and sheer excitement to make music which had been untouched by ego or cynicism, the two became inseparable. A new life had begun. And then there were two.

GHOSTWOMAN became a head-on collision between the switchblade rust of his guitars and her caustic drum beats which march them on toward a shared oblivion. Welcome to the Civilized World is an album to be a pure distillation of their shared vision. From its earliest sketch to its final form, the only people to touch it were GHOSTWOMAN themselves.

The meaning of the album is inseparable from its meaninglessness. As Uschenko puts it: “The album is inspired by the absurdity of human behaviour and the circus that is life: sometimes feels like being in a room with no floor – that’s where a lot of these songs come from.” After losing friends to suicide over the past year, the suspension of disbelief required to wade through the everyday had dissipated. If there is any meaning at all to Welcome to the Civilized World, it is simply to keep going: there is no other choice.

Musically, GHOSTWOMAN are a sharper beast than ever: hypnotic spells of psych-grunge, decaying Americana and instrumental locked-horns. Uschenko, who presides over the vocals, insists they are not important. Much of the lyrics are nonsense, not written as much as abstractly sketched to feel out the shape of the music itself – but even in Uschenko’s dream grammar, the force and feeling are no less potent. The band’s process is intuitive rather than calculated; sounds are made in a chain reaction to one another.