New Orleans resident Melissa Guion’s ‘Precious Systems’, her 2016 debut as MJ Guider, impressed many a keen ear with its confident, high-voltage take on shoegazey dreampop. Here we voyage deeper into the neon-shaded subterranea that album only tentatively explored, with extra dark dance allure thrown in. Thrillers like ‘Quiet Time’ or ‘Body Optics’ propel us into a cavernous vortex, where melodic fragments of shadowy beauty coalesce with exceptional potency around Guion’s powerful vocals, in a storm of irresistible Southern gothic electricity. Recommended.
