The sounds on Kee Avil’s debut full-length album Crease seem surrounded by acres of space; it’s as if the instruments are played in a subterranean cavern where you encounter each one separately before they join together into a loose ensemble of voice, guitar, percussion, and keyboards. Pieces of deconstructed song structures float in and out, catching your attention and drifting away before you can pin them down. Kee Avil is the alter ego of Montreal guitarist Vicky Mettler, best known as a member of Sam Shalabi’s group Land of Kush. Mettler’s guitar lines form the jittery foundation of most of the songs, plucking out starkly beautiful little metallic melodies and riffs that reverberate against the cello, bass, and electronic glitches. The keyboards shapeshift; droning menacingly, pounding out an unsettling melody, or buzzing like a faulty lightbulb. The percussion clicks and snaps or else thumps like approaching footsteps or like shutters banging in the wind. The ghostly vocals intertwine in a rhythmic battle with the beats, squeezing out the words as if each breath is a risk to take. The lyrics paint dark, vivid images in the lyrics: cracked porcelain heads, crumbling worlds, a teasing itch that bites the back of a bruised neck, a sliver of glass sliding between two lungs. The effect is eerie, ominous, and positively spine-tingling.