Pet Deaths – ‘The Window (Part One)’ album review: A considered album of provocation

Posted On September 19, 2025September 19, 2025

The very idea of windows seems to be antiquated in the modern world. When we see things we don’t like, we choose not to peer through a crack in the surface, but instead shut the door on it entirely. Lucky then, that Pet Deaths have reinvented the idea of marginal sight through their third album, The Window (Part One), which persists in offering you a view of the truth through modest yet well-crafted music.

‘Nightfires’ act as the careful peeling back of the curtains, revealing well-considered tenderness inside. As the finger-picked melody plays out, it almost drags you into the album’s setting, like a slow but hypnotic vortex, guided by the muffled sound of Graeme Martin’s gentle vocals. It’s a song steeped in intrigue that rightfully gives way to their lead single ‘YouTube Comments’, an unflinching and provocative take that undoubtedly keeps you in the world, listening with intent to the rest of the record.

For a band of high artistic class, the song is as Ronseal as you think, which it requires, given the directness of vitriol real like YouTube comments harbour. “It was surreal, dark, sometimes hilarious and deeply unsettling. The dialogue you hear in the track is real, lifted word-for-word from those strange, threatening, and often absurd interactions on YouTube comments,” Liam Karima elaborated.

In keeping with the record’s sonic palette, Martin and Karima repackage it into something more delicate and heartfelt. But it continues going deeper into the realms of ethereal hypnotism as the tracklisting unfolds. ‘I’m Still Smiling’ is the peaceful peak of the record, akin to descending into the dark depths of the ocean and having specs of light cascade around you.

Throughout all of these tracks, Martin’s vocal is the perfect companion to the soundscape Pet Deaths are creating. It’s largely patient and delicately dances in the shadows of whatever drawn out note their atmospheric approach takes them, but when needed, he uses it to gently punctuate the space, provoking an already deep sense of thought.

In keeping with the overall sentiment of portraying artistic honesty, the band doesn’t wholly adopt one dimension. Instead, they offset it with considered use of industrialism. ‘(0800-365-00)’ is truly the sound of a technological nightmare, the drums of ‘Call Heaven’ sound almost like the peeling bricks of the world, finally coming undone while ‘Dragonfly Serenade No 1 In C’ flutters through distorted horn breakdowns and a downward spiralling piano part to truly paint their work of digitalised dystopia with the appropriate amount of darkness.

It’s a record of quiet and considered contemplation, providing you with all the narrative depth you need to listen and truly absorb the world around you. If provocative denseness isn’t your thing, then it still has all the compositional notes to truly make for a compelling listen and soundtrack a culture in transition.

Defining track: ‘Love Has Won’

For fans of: Killing with kindness.

A concluding comment from the comment dwellers: “I never really looked at it like that”.

Release date: September 19th, 2025 | Producer: Graeme Martin and Liam Karima | Label: Silver Mind

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