“Smoke Through It” is the strong second release from former Minneapolis trip-hop duo Endless Blue. The group consists of singer Laura Hillman and guitar/synth/drum machine programmer Nick Mitchell. Comparisons to Portishead are inevitable, but also quite apt, although Hillman fills the role of old school jazz chanteuse much more effectively than Portishead’s Beth Gibbons ever could.

Musically, Mitchell keeps the sound quite varied, managing to avoid rote, repetitive sampling that is the bane of much electronic music. He fills “Goodbye” with smooth, jazz-laden bass riffs, while “The Feeling” recalls Trent Reznor’s ballads. “Undone” surprisingly combines the seemingly incongruous elements of country and trip-hop to great effect, and “Break” takes on a hard-hitting industrial feel, which is no surprise considering Mitchell and Hillman were members of electro-goth group STATE4.

Lyrically, the band’s name pretty much says it all. This is some dark, depressing stuff. “Goodbye” is a brutal kiss-off song, in which Hillman coldly croons: “I don’t care about your pain/It’s time for you to go.” “Just Tell Me” gets suicidal with the line: “I’m so damn tired of life this way,” and “Break,” the one song in which it sounds as if the narrator may find love, pleads: “You make me want to hold you ‘til I break you.” Ouch.

“Smoke Through It” sounds as if it could have come from a rainy, British industrial town circa 1994, but it sounds more timeless than it does dated, largely due to Hillman’s torch singeresque vocal stylings. Nowhere is this more apparent than on their updated cover of Peggy Lee’s “Fever,” which fits well in its new musical surroundings. Trip-hop was brief fad, but anyone feeling pangs of nostalgia for the days when every other song on Radio K was by Tricky would do well to check out this release.

www.endlessbluemusic.com