According to the ancient language of flowers, the Lily represents purity. It also represents other states such as hatred, pride, falseness and coquetry, depending on the variety you choose to give. Most countenances of the Lilium family are present on this album. This is grown up music. There are no screaming guitars, no over-excitable vocals. What we have is a collection of solid, introspective songs fuelled by an unnamed and troubling melancholia. It hums the kind of tension that permeates a room where a back stabbing, sleazy secret is known by everyone except the wronged. Pascal Humbert and Jean-Yves Tola spend most of their time as two-thirds of the Gothically charged, alt-country, Denver based band 16 Horsepower.

As Lilium, they have invited like-minded guest vocalists to add their own lyrics to the pair's lilting, atmospheric music that's been wholly built using real instruments of a traditional hue. David Eugene Edwards, the excluded 16hp portion, joins them for 'Whitewashed', to look death straight in the face without flinching. The moment Edwards' plaintive, passion-lead voice enters, is moving to the extreme. Formerly of the innovative 90s band Morphine, Dana Colley adds distinctive saxophone to a couple of tracks, and bleary, redolent vocals from Kal Cahoone help to keep the fragile moroseness on the road. Instrumentation is precise, and as basic as deemed necessary throughout. Nothing is wasted or indulged but the filigree atmosphere moves on from track to track to leave a quaint gravitas in its wake.

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