Parlormuse has certainly been on a run this year, having already released two EPs of seasonally-themed Victorian songs within the past two months. Only days before Halloween comes the third installment in its trilogy of creativity, Grinning at the Daisy Roots, which also marks the project’s first full-length release in almost 13 years.
Daisy Roots explores a strangely multifaceted world of Victorian supernatural themes, drawing on authentic source material from the late 1800s and early 1900s as it weaves its way across its 11 tracks. There is far more here than minor key dirges, however: the Victorians took a uniquely varied view of mortality, and the album definitely manages to capture that. Opening with the sprightly “Spirit Rappings” before descending into the creepy-yet-hopeful “The Legend,” Daisy Roots quickly establishes a pattern of defying expectations.