Third Bloom & Mishkin Fitzgerald's 'ARCHIVE' is a haunting soundtrack to the end of everything

There are albums that play like collections of tracks, and then there are albums that feel like worlds. 'ARCHIVE', the collaboration between Brighton-based creator Third Bloom and the singular Mishkin Fitzgerald, belongs emphatically to the latter. This is a record that delivers an experience, unfolding like a forgotten film reel discovered in the ruins.

From the opening moments of 'Claw, Pt.1', 'ARCHIVE' establishes an atmosphere thick with aftershock and remembrance. The compositions lean heavily on instrumental storytelling, allowing orchestral swells and electronic undercurrents to speak where lyrics might otherwise intrude.

Third Bloom’s flair for moody, shadow-laced textures is unmistakable. The palette feels vast yet intimate, combining sweeping arrangements with delicate melodic threads that drift in and out like distant recollections. The electronic elements hum and pulse beneath strings and piano lines, creating a layered soundscape that feels both ancient and futuristic.

Mishkin Fitzgerald’s presence adds emotional gravity. Known for her theatrical intensity in other projects, here she channels a more understated, spectral energy. Even in largely wordless passages, her musical fingerprints are clear in the melodic phrasing that aches, and harmonies that hover like unanswered questions. When guest musicians Hana Piranha and Garry Mitchell enter the frame, their contributions deepen the album’s emotional architecture. Violin lines cut through the haze with raw elegance, while guitar textures add grit and tension, balancing fragility with force.

The overarching concept of a landscape stripped of familiarity, where only remnants endure, never feels heavy-handed. Instead, it seeps into the music organically. Each track feels like a fragment pulled from the wreckage, polished by time but still carrying the weight of what came before.

What makes 'ARCHIVE' so compelling is its commitment to mood and narrative without exposition. It trusts us to sit with the music, to project our own imagery onto its sweeping canvases. The boundary between cinema and sound dissolves entirely; this could easily score a dystopian epic or an intimate art-house drama.

In a musical landscape often obsessed with immediacy, 'ARCHIVE' dares to linger. It is patient, immersive, and richly detailed; a testament to what can happen when two visionary artists allow atmosphere and imagination to lead.