Internal Recurrence is the debut album by Lifeless Satellites, a duo formed in Minneapolis in 2008. On it, Jeremy Devens and Jesse Alexander Green meander slowly through melancholy songs drenched in pain and woe. Billed as “a concept album about loss and acceptance,” Internal Recurrence takes the listener on a tour of places they normally wouldn’t want to go — Devens sings these personal and sorrowful songs as if he literally just experienced them; the pain present in each syllable. This is Internal Recurrence’s strength: raw, piercing emotion.

The album’s weakness comes in the songs themselves. While the acoustic guitar work on each track is great, it doesn’t offer much in dynamics, either between songs or within any of them. Each song carries on without any real variance, except perhaps “Desperately,” which felt like a change of pace from the rest of the album.

But then again, that could have been the point. Maybe Lifeless Satellites were going for keeping the listener in specific moments, making them feel each strand of despair. If so, they’ve done a great job here.

(self-released, no address provided)