In life and art, strong emotional reactions and restraint are frequently placed at odds with one another. A decade that has felt unmoored at best and marked by upheaval – dotted with climate events that have wrought havoc on different locales and been quickly forgotten – has inspired plenty of bold artistic responses. For Maria BC, an artist whose work has covered dark folk and goth territory and who has explored the potential of different electronic elements, the impulse to respond to these environmental pressures by being louder, denser, more aggressive would seem natural. However, on their third album, Marathon, they have instead pulled back sharply on the production, and these decisions build a low-simmering, tense mood in a gentle guise.