The music of Kathryn Mohr thrives in quiet spaces and upended expectations. Her first album, last year’s Waiting Room, was trapped in an eerie limbo of despair, a puzzle box horror of agonised howls, serrated machinery and pregnant silence. Carve is no less visceral in its approach but, although it was informed by trauma response and emotional distance, it lives in hope of better times.

The album alternates between grungy rockers owing much to Pixies, Mudhoney and early ’90s alt-rock and the sort of lo-fi experimentalism of Smog and The Mountain Goats (before they both polished up their acts). Chuck in a few field recordings, warped waltzing and blown-out drone and you’ve got yourself a hell of a record.

The album was mostly written and recorded in the Mojave Desert, during a period of self-isolation and a reckoning with grief. The loneliness is felt throughout Carve, explicitly in the sparse, acoustic ruminations of ‘Property’ or ‘Idiocy’, but even when the double-tracked vocals soar across the chunky riffs of ‘Doorway’ and ‘Cells’ it seems clear that Mohr is only in dialogue with herself. Lyrics come in aphoristic snatches and repeated phrases: “It’s not fair / I am here”, “In the crawlspace of a heart”, “Sky is a doorway”. The ambiguity is palpable, though a sense of humour pokes through occasionally: “The dead get better all the time” she repeats on ‘Idiocy’ – gothic nonsense or winking worship of the Bay Area legends?

The crackling lo-fi production, courtesy of Agriculture’s Richard Chowenhill, coats the album in a static film and rarely allows a pure melody to emerge. It’s dusty and uncomfortable, full of ghostly effects and gothic touchstones, but there’s no sense of the supernatural here: this is firmly of this reality, whether that be the gamelan orchestra and rainforest sounds of ‘Chromium 6’ or the dense, exploding supernova that closes the album on ‘Crow Eyes’. The tactile, improvisatory feel is exemplified on ‘I Do’ as Mohr repeats the marital phrase in an increasingly unhinged manner, the guitar notes rising to match the chaos.

Carve will proudly take you into an uneasy mental space while blending head-banging riffs with ambient folk with drone motifs. It’s a confident, original statement from an artist who is learning to harness the darkness and use art to forge a path forward. There’s no easy resolution to be found here, but these fascinating songs and sound worlds suggest progress is possible. And right now, that feels good enough.