Their second release in four months, Maijical Cloudz’s Wait &See EP comes hot on the heels of their successful second full-length, Are You Alone.

Though maintaining their trademark earnestness and intimacy, Wait & See is something different, a collection of songs recorded at different times through Are You Alone’s creation that ultimately “didn’t fit on that album for one reason or another.” Only one clue is offered: “there is a feeling that links them all together.” For fans and new listeners alike, listening to the five-track EP becomes an attempt to piece these songs together; to put a finger on what feeling makes them a whole.

The collection drips with a pain missing on the full-length. Wait and See feels more private — suited to lying on the floor of a dimmed bedroom. Imbued with themes of loneliness, death, mental illness, and social exclusion, the songs feel like the soundtrack to a disembodying depressive episode, but one you don’t mind indulging in.

Opener “Wait and See” is chillingly cinematic — the distorted string lines sound as if they’re quickly being reabsorbed into the ether as fast as they come out. The heavy drum hits that underline Walsh’s closing counsel to “wait and see” suggest that even this is no guarantee that things will be better on the other side. The opening lines, “You’re disappearing now / You’re disappearing friend” encapsulate the EP’s lingering feeling.

Welsh’s lyrics express insecurity; “Pretty” finds him asking “Do you love me / Or am I wearing you out.” Even when shreds of hope are offered, the permeating melancholy seems insurmountable — “You are near me / Oh no one gets close.” On “Heaven,” happiness can only be experienced through its proximity to death: “When we’re dead / We will dance.” The limited happiness offered is quickly undercut with fatalism: “You laugh standing in the mirror / In a day, you’ll never be this young again.” Even in tracks which offer some hope through their narratives, like closer “My Heart Soaks Up Every Drop of Your Blood,” the motifs continue to brood.

Majical Cloudz continue to do here what they have historically done so well: Matthew Otto supports Welsh’s lyrical starkness and bright vocal tone with ethereal and fuzzy synth work, and it has resulted in a tight pack of downhearted-but-entrancing tunes. So be warned, Wait & See establishes its mood so well that you should only listen if you’re ready to be sucked in.