Stream: Ballerina Black, ‘Light Sensitive’ EP

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Ballerina Black

For over a decade now, Ballerina Black has been shifting moods from dark to darker on the New Wave/goth tip of post-punk music, layering synths, driving bass and echoing guitars into mini-monuments to the era of the Cure.

Since releasing a full-length in 2011, the band has released six reliably gloomy and inarguably tuneful EPs, including three in their “Injureless” trilogy. The latest (and first since 2017), “Light Sensitive,” is partly a product of quarantine and came out in late November. It finds the trio — Bobby Moynahan, Esli Sugich and Scott Eton — in full glisten, with Moynahan’s pleading vocals soaring over chromatic synthesizers, sounding (overall) more expansive than ever.

“Holograms” and “Devils and Lilacs” serve as the EP’s yin and yang, the former swirling around in a ping-pong of synths and an ocean of longing and the latter drawing its ache from Moynahan’s evocative vocals and a rubbery bass line.

The EP wraps a busy year for Moynahan, who stretches out on his more lyrically focused solo project Peninsula LA, releasing a full-length made in collaboration with producers in L.A. and Berlin.

||| Stream: “Light Sensitive”

Ballerina Black · Light Sensitive

||| Previously: “Microphones in the Mattress,” “Knves,” “Whails”