It’s drama, it’s smoke and mirrors, it’s wandering down a dark hallway in your nightgown, “Deep in The Shadows” pulls back the curtains into the eldritch world of Anne Bennett.
Heavy piano chords open into a progression of twinkling keys and echoing drums, synths swell in minor keys like a ghostly choir. Bennett pulls together a swirling atmosphere of eerie beauty. The flamboyance of the song’s darkness pins down a very signature eighties feel, very into-itself and theatrical. It’s got a great tempo, slow, but at an adventurous cadence.
What stands out to me the most is Bennett’s vocal performance. Similar to Celebration-era Madonna, she is full and euphonious, singing from her chest with a confident range. A comparison to 80’s Heart can be made as well, epic, and with a characteristic resonance of Ann Wilson.
Bennett’s storytelling is enticingly creepy, and full of melancholy. She refers to an intimate meeting with a shadowy lover, and an unborn child.
“I was afraid of moving to slow
You came to me in the darkest of times
The house stayed dark and our union grew
An intimate meeting and a hunger renewed”
“Deep in the shadows my spirit runs free
It hides from the monster lost inside of me
Deep in the shadows my unborn child waits
For the opening of gallows
And the life she creates”
The story reminds me of Rosemary’s Baby, a 1986 psychological horror film wherein a woman becomes pregnant with the child of Satan. I don’t know if the man (or monster) in “Deep in The Shadows” could represent the devil, but she refers to the “monster inside of me” multiple times. Particularly the last line before the final chorus makes me think that the struggle she faces is with herself, and the possible evil that she has created and therefore become.
“The love that no longer loved the monster inside of me”
Anne Bennett captures the pull of the macabre, the thing that makes you want to follow the sounds of scratching coming from down the stairs. “Deep in The Shadows” is a tremulous tale and a haunting listen, check it out below and keep an eye out for what Anne Bennett conjures up next!
