8/10

Afton Wolfe has never been the kind of artist who colours inside the lines, but 'Ophiuchus' feels like the moment he tosses the colouring book out the window entirely and starts sketching straight onto the night sky. This is an album born from ritual, timing, and a kind of mad, deliberate intuition. He staged a year-long cosmic procession, dropping each song in sync with the Sun’s slow drift across the real zodiac. It’s an audacious idea, and somehow, the results live up to the ambition.

Across its thirteen tracks, 'Ophiuchus' plays like a haunted observatory of genres: tango spun through smoke, bruised folk confessionals, shape-shifting blues, gospel-kissed grooves, and polemics wrapped in waltz time.

The record swings open with the smouldering gravitas we’ve come to expect from him. 'Rules of War' slinks forward, sharp as a dagger and twice as elegant, while 'I Deserve to be Forgiven' waltzes with tender conviction, full of dust-lit clarity and a hint of rebellion.

Then there are the quieter, devastating jewels such as 'One Million Children', a furious lament disguised in a whirlwind tempo that lands its blow with precision; 'Winter Comes for Mary' moves like a lament carried by cold wind; 'Crooked Roads' breathes with the golden-hued warmth of a Southern afternoon and the melancholy that follows one home. And when the shimmering dreamscape of 'Ascetic Sleep Song No. 4' slides into view, you’re already too transfixed to resist the album’s gravitational pull.

The cosmic illustrations by Cora Lee only heighten the spell, but the real magic is Wolfe’s own demeanour. A raspy storyteller weaving sorrow, protest, mysticism and romance into something that feels strangely ancient and sharply modern.

This is Afton Wolfe’s most expansive vision yet, but it’s also his most grounded. Beneath the astrology and symbolism lies something beating with urgency. 'Ophiuchus' is an album that believes music can be a signal flare, a prayer, and a map all rolled into one.