7/10

With 'Serene Despair,' Antoin Gibson (under the Circum-Sŏnus banner) has crafted an EP that resurrects mythology, reshaping timeless femme fatale figures into living, breathing forces within a kaleidoscope of sound. Across five tracks, each entity is reborn as a full embodiment, conjured through texture, tone, and lyrical intent.

The opener 'Vessel of the Loveless' is pure fire and brimstone glamour, a Succubus anthem with razor-sharp hooks and venomous charm. The track pulses with infernal confidence, reveling in the idea of desire as weapon, where every line feels like both a curse and a promise. By contrast, 'Sociopath’s Kaleidoscope' takes on the Morrígan’s mantle of war and prophecy, cloaking its balladry in shadows. The song feels like a haunted battlefield in slow motion, violence and inevitability twinned in every breath.

If those tracks haunt the earth, 'Nightshade Simmering Secrets' pulls us underwater. A darkwave-inspired siren song, it throbs like a club floor doubling as an ocean trench; equal parts hypnotic and suffocating. Its synths shimmer like phosphorescence before swallowing you whole. Then comes 'Maze of the Serpentine Gaze', perhaps the most cinematic piece of the collection. With layers that twist and coil, it places us inside Medusa’s labyrinth, where perception itself is fatal.

The closer 'My Life’s Dirge' is devastating in its intimacy. The Banshee’s lament becomes a vessel for despair that is all too human, a slow unfurling of grief and futility that lands like cold soil on a fresh grave. It’s here the paradox of the EP’s title becomes clearest; where serenity and agony coexist in one final, harrowing cry.

What makes 'Serene Despair' so striking is Gibson’s refusal to dilute these mythic archetypes into surface-level aesthetics. Instead, each track commits fully to its chosen figure’s emotional and symbolic weight. The production shifts through dark pop, electronic pulse, and cinematic orchestration, but the cohesion lies in the storytelling, and the way these legends are allowed to speak through the music itself.

It’s an ambitious offering that feels more like a séance than anything else. Antoin Gibson is embodying these myths, giving them contemporary flesh and voice. 'Serene Despair' is myth made modern, myth made personal, and, ultimately, myth made flesh.