Macabre lyrics and sweet melodies populate Marika Hackman’s mini-album ‘That Iron Taste,’ a Tim Burton-esque mixture of the grotesque and pretty. Six songs on the album alternate between stripped down guitar numbers and showy built-up electronica pieces that give the album a satisfying ebb and flow. It was produced by Charlie Andrew who produced Alt-J’s ‘An Awesome Wave’ and the sounds on this album are as polished as that album.

The opening track Mountain Spines is one of the quiet ones and it gives a good indicator for the tone of the rest of the album right from its opening notes. It is a quality song that changes tempo leaping into a faster strum before slowly receding back into the more sombre verses, which is also roughly the form the album takes overall.

It is followed by Cannibal, a beautifully instrumented three minute tune with very dark and disgusting lyrics that builds until it reaches a fantastic off-key crescendo at the end of each chorus then reverts back to the build. On first listen it sounds like a wall of sound, but it’s actually only a couple of guitar overdubs with a whistling organ sound that comes in every now and then and an unobtrusive drum beat to give the song a steady pulse.

Marika’s deadpan voice reveals little emotion. When she sings lyrics like “I took a knife and stabbed out the light that was in our eyes” it has a strange effect on the listener. They seem like the kind of lyrics that should be screamed over an atonal distorted guitar and a pounding double-bass drum, but presented in that emotionless way – with all the indifference of a psychopath – over soft minor notes and sweetly textured instrumentation it is particularly eerie and endearingly so.

The rest of the songs are not considerably different from the opening two, but they are all very well written, performed and produced so anyone who likes those opening tracks will be compelled to listen on and will not be disappointed. A curious lyrical obsession and very pleasing melodies make this mini-album a success.