There is an intersection of dark fairy tales and anguished love, technological nightmares and horror show romance. Brooding squarely within that crossroads sits Austin’s Farmer’s Wife. Pulling from 90’s dirge rock, 60’s psych and occasionally 80’s nonchalance, their songs are reminiscent of classic early records from Smashing Pumpkins, Slowdive, and Hole as well as the pained imagery of 2000’s emo pioneers. Songs as powerful as they are frail, as ethereal as they are stark.

If singer Molly Masson’s coquettish onstage performance distracts you from the despair, anger and confusion in her voice, that’s just part of the puzzle. The nuances of their music deliberately creep out at each listen. Lulling, intricate guitar lines traded between Eric Limon, Derek Ivy and bassist Jacob Masson. Hypnotic drumming from Jaelyn Valero that at times, when their live show spirals into free-form abandon and structure is left behind, recalls John Densmore.

Farmer’s Wife however, for all their experimentation, are master songwriters, never more capably displayed than on gentle yet jarring songs such as “Keep Hate In Your Heart” or in lines that run from the epitome of sweet (“I miss having her hand here in mine”) to ghastly (“I chop you up in little pieces let you grow a little mold; My fungus, worms and rats will eat at all your fats until you cease to exist”).

Their new EP Faint Illusions takes this journey to a grittier place musically, but with the same familiar themes lurking throughout the songs. Decomposing, fading, withering – all imagery turned from grim finality to romantic despair. “Tangled up in silk again. Cover me in your mildew….The fruit it rots and falls onto me’ sings Molly on “Mildew”, again turning decay into ardor.

Repeatedly the band weaves the most delicate lyrical webs through a storm of instrumental dirge that recalls early Janes Addiction and Tool in its meandering intensity: “Walking down the sunset stars are in the street. One pocket full of posies, one pocket full of meat” sets the ghoulish tone for “The Ballet”, a song that starts in whimsical twilight before spiraling into a fever dream of night and chaos. The final track, “Discount Roses” sees a simple tale of falling in love swallowed by metaphors of alien abduction and a nod to a paradise of the afterlife – coming full circle on the arc of love’s birth and death.

It’s the purest of storytelling – both intensely personal and conversely voyeuristic. At one moment a world seen through their eyes, the next relegated to watching it play out through a window, isolated. That push-pull of intimacy and distance is central to the recordings and the live show, leaving you constantly off-balance but always enraptured.