Gothic BC

Black Dahlia

As an addendum to our main roster Year End coverage, we’re poking out of our Tofurkey comas to each pick five tracks from the past year which stuck with us. Separate from our records of the year and honorable mentions, these are club-joints, one-offs, or just damn catchy ditties we wanted to throw some roses at before the the ghost of Dick Clark does the countdown. We’re also discussing the lineup of next year’s Verboden festival. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Wrapping up our week of Year End coverage we have an episode of the podcast discussing some common trends and notable factors in our Top 25 records of the year, some statistical number crunching looking back at previous years’ lists, and each of the Senior Staff choosing five honourable mention records from the year which didn’t quite make the list. Thanks so much for checking the podcast out, whether you’re jumping in to get a crash course in the year’s best music or you’ve stuck with us all year. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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And here we are, with our favourite records of the year in focus. As always, we’re never sure how much an exercise like this says about the year that was in dark music in and of itself as opposed to the subjective year we had in the field, but we always have a blast doing it, and we hope that if nothing else it brings your attention to some records you might have missed. We’ll be back tomorrow with a podcast recapping the list and also highlighting some honourable mentions. Thanks for sticking with us through another year of coverage here at ID:UD, and we’ll see you in the new year!

5. Ashbury Heights
Ghost House Sessions vol. 1
Out of Line
Ashbury Heights’ Ghost House Sessions Vol. 1 is simultaneously the swedish electropop act’s most characteristic and most idiosyncratic release to date. Forgoing their usual approach of releasing an album every few years with an adjusted line-up and a sound tweaked to match contemporary production sounds and ideas, this massive double album took form over the course of several years with project leader Anders Hagström tapping a wide array of collaborators and indulging a number of style exercises, going well beyond any musical territory explored by the band up ’til this point. What’s genuinely striking about that approach is that no matter whose voice appears on a track (be it Blutengel’s Ulrike on “A Lifetime in Service of Darkness, Danny Blu on the brooding “Cutscenes”, or ethereal darkwave chanteuse Madil Hardis on “A Cut in Place” and “Wild Eyes” amongst others), or what kind of song it is, the sound is Ashbury Heights through and through. That speaks to the persona that Hagström has developed for the band, allowing enough flexibility to record songs as far out as the cod-reggae of “In the Dark”, the oompah-band schmaltz of “Halcyon” and the modern EDM of “Escape Velocity” and still have them be unmistakably themselves. It’s an identity defined by those trademark melodies, the clever but never insincere lyrics, and the Swedish popcraft that has always set them apart from their contemporaries; Ghost House Sessions Vol. 1 is Ashbury Heights, even when it’s not being any version of Ashbury Heights we’ve ever heard before and may never hear again. Read our full review.
Ghost House Sessions Vol. 1 by Ashbury Heights

4. Feyleux
Midnight Hearts
Swiss Dark Nights
We’ve been writing and talking for more than a decade about the priority darkwave places on atmosphere, allowing for so many different expressions and sub-sub-genres to drift and luxuriate within its nebulous realm. Arriving fully formed with their debut LP, North Carolina duo Feyleux reminded us all this year of just how wide ranging the genre could be, touching upon everything from the windswept ethereality of classic Projekt releases to pure goth rock to dream pop to synth-buoyed dancefloor numbers. Keeping so many plates spinning without Midnight Hearts falling into chaotic discord would be an impressive feat in and of itself, but it also brought us some of the strongest, most memorable, and most affecting dark tunes we heard this year. There were immediate tracks like “Blood Shadows” and “Icy Veins” which leapt out of the speakers with bracing beats and misty guitars, but also more subtle pieces of songcraft, perhaps belying Laurie Roroden and Erica Gilstrap’s preceding tenures in indie rock. The way “Cerulean Heart” just barely betrays the emotion obscured behind its austere, near waltz-like lilt, or the bed of lush synths which carry Roroden’s voice aloft when the bittersweet chorus of “Lunaria Swirls” begins to bloom were part and parcel of what kept us returning to Midnight Hearts throughout the year. It sounds as though the band’s already begun work on a follow-up, and while the prospect of more material of this caliber bodes well for North American darkwave, Midnight Hearts deserves its dark roses at the end of the year. Read our full review.
Midnight Hearts by Feyleux

3. Urban Heat
The Tower
Artoffact Records
Urban Heat rode a wave of buzz into 2024, based on the electricity of the Austin trio’s live performances. The question was, could the band translate the energy and charisma that had been earning them fans on the road to a record. Enter The Tower, a record that answered the question, and silenced doubters in one fell swoop. Using post-punk as a homebase, frontman Jonathan Horstmann and his bandmates Kevin Naquin and Paxel Foley take their sound in a wide variety of directions, dipping into club-ready darkwave (“Right Time of Night”), groovy mid-tempo electro (“Sanitizer”), and down the pipe guitar rock (“Seven Safe Places”). No matter the direction, the fundamentals remain the same: strong choruses, tight arrangements that work for home or club listening, and Horstmann’s magnetic presence as a frontman, the band’s not-so-secret weapon in a live setting captured entirely through his lyrics and rich baritone vocals. It’s a perfect storm of an LP, with the band’s charming personality, their songwriting, and the production all in complete lockstep, performed with no small amount of heart and a deep and effortless cool that doesn’t clash with its melancholic or its anthemic turns.  The Tower truly has it all, emotional highs and lows, DJ-friendly dance cuts, and wicked collection of hooks that should keep in rotation for Urban Heat’s still-growing fanbase for years to come. It’ll be a tough act for them to follow, but then again, The Tower is such a triumph of potential realized, that it’s hard to bet against them. Read our full review.
The Tower by Urban Heat

2. Haujobb
The Machine In The Ghost
Dependent
The boys are back in town. And by “the boys” we of course mean one of the most uncompromising, courageous, and important acts to ever emerge from the ghetto of post-industrial music, and by “back in town” we mean continuing to produce some of the most engrossing yet maddeningly cryptic electronic music you’ll ever encounter, regardless of genre, after nearly a decade on hiatus. Sure, in a perfect world the Haujobb catalog would be celebrated by critics with no real familiarity with industrial alongside that of Burial, Coil, and Aphex Twin, but even cursory contact with the tension and unease which permeates every second of The Machine In The Ghost is a reminder that our world is anything but perfect. Simultaneously imbued with motorik precision and uncanny chaos, Dejan Samardzic and Daniel Myer’s latest compositions push the rhythmic envelope further than any of their predecessors, weaving between sleek and chilly minimalist beats and clattering excesses of noise. Note how the hissing and pinging components of “Uselessness” begin to assemble themselves into a lurching mechanism, paradoxically gaining momentum as every metallic beat seems to threaten to send the whole affair crashing into the scrap yard. Also, all of his time sojourning in the impersonal, wholly instrumental world of dark techno hasn’t done anything to Myer’s presence and gravitas as a front man; he’s still a coolly menacing presence vocally, knowing just how to build and maintain tension only to release it with a whisper of intonation on “In The Headlights”‘ lurching game of binaries. We don’t deserve them, but if Haujobb was in it for their due credit they would have packed it in long ago. Read our full review.
The Machine in the Ghost by Haujobb

1. Twin Tribes
Pendulum
Beso De Muerte Records
The recent resurgence of interest, or at least awareness, of goth and darkwave music in mainstream circles has brought back with it, as it always does every eight or so years, the eternal discussions of genre definition, gatekeeping, poserdom, generation gaps, and the like (it’s tempting to call such discussions “tiresome”, but we’re not above getting our hands dirty from time to time). A record like Pendulum is a balm in these discordant times, then, not just by virtue of its quality but also by virtue of the effectively universal acclaim Texas two-piece Twin Tribes have come by organically and honestly over the last half decade. We can all waste our time splitting hairs or questioning each other’s goth cred as much as we want, but there’s simply no getting around the realization which Pendulum has cemented in the minds of so many of us: Twin Tribes are the best darkwave band of their generation.

Arriving with fully developed knacks for both melodies and composition with their 2018 debut Shadows, Twin Tribes’ work has progressed by degrees of refinement and subtle shifts in focus ever since. Where Ceremony tilted ever so slightly towards classic goth rock, Pendulum course corrects by stressing the synth programming which lies beneath Luis Navarro and Joel Niño, Jr.’s deft guitar and bass work. Whether it’s in the lush swing of closing lullaby “Meadow” or in the immediate, Xymox-esque punch of smash hit “Monolith”, Twin Tribes find just the right synth palettes to underscore Pendulum‘s rock solid songwriting without ever obscuring the economy and hooks which have been their calling card since day one.

And by god does this record have those qualities in spades; “Another Life” takes a simple configuration of synth, bass, and speedy drum programming and rides them into earworm territory with nary a pause, darkly energizing to the point that it can be easy to overlook how much atmosphere Navarro and Niño, Jr. conjure up. “Cauldron of Thorns” flips that formula, starting with crushed velvet dramatics of the most opulent variety, intoxicating enough to distract the listener from it’s sneakily catchy guitar and vocal melodies. It’s a ludicrously consistent record in that regard, with no song failing to deliver the atmospherics or an immediate chorus, to the point that even trying to put your finger on a favourite song can be difficult – they’re all that good.

Unlike so many of our our top end of year picks, we came into this process with no obvious frontrunner for the number one spot. Consequently we spent a lot of time listening to the albums that seemed like they could take the prize, which is where the true strength of Pendulum became so apparent: we knew from the moment of release that Twin Tribes hadn’t lost a step in the years between releases, but that an album could sound so fresh, so immediate, and so imminently listenable on the hundredth listen like it was the first? That’s a rare and special quality that made the choice easy. Twin Tribes’ Pendulum is our album of the year for 2024.

Pendulum by Twin Tribes

And that’s it! Year End Wrap-Up podcast tomorrow, then we’ll be on hiatus until the new year. Thanks for reading, and we’ll be back soon!

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And so we come to the middle portion of our Top 25 countdown, traditionally the portion of the list with the most surprises, sometimes even for us. As with all years, the nature of collaboration leads us to some interesting places, as the sympatico and divergent tastes of the Senior Staff end up moving albums up, down, on and off in unpredictable fashion. With this post, it should now be possible to make an informed guess as to our Top 5 before the grand reveal tomorrow – guesses as to what get the honours are welcome in the comments below!

15. Dancing Plague
Elogium
AVANT!
After years of the North America being beholden to a particular strain of electro-darkwave, Conor Knowles’ embrace of the genre’s imperial and dour (if no less danceable) continental spirit was a palette cleanser and a main course unto itself. A key to these body music and industrial-informed songs lies in Knowles’ emotional deep-voiced vocals, which add weight and gravitas to the proceedings, keeping even the danciest of the record’s numbers deadly serious in tone. The overwhelmingly gloomy atmosphere could have been a downer, thankfully Elogium is replete with passion, albeit one spiked with self-excoriation and sorrow. While the record’s title suggests a dedication to the already deceased, its bracing struggle in the face of metaphorical oblivion feels intensely alive, and all the more crucial for it. Read our full review.
Elogium by Dancing Plague

14. Gallows’ Eve
13 Thorns
self-released
Absolutely obliterating stereotypes about continental goth being too turgid or bereft of hooks to get by on anything other than mood, Malmö trio Gallow’s Eve set the standard for traditional gothic rock impossibly high in January with their debut LP. Taking the depth and gravitas of Germany’s disciples of the Nephilim and the stormy blitz of rhythm and harmony plied by the UK’s best goth rock bands, and then fusing them via Swedish alchemy and studiocraft gleaned from their metal backgrounds, tunes like “The Rivers Will” and “To The Lighthouse” had all of the midnight tempest thrills your Aquanet hairdo can handle before collapse. Taking the principles of second wave gothic rock at their face, Gallow’s Eve brought unabashed, rocking anthems back into the broader goth conversation in direct defiance of the current mores of darkwave. Bracing and utterly addictive. Read our full review.13 Thorns by Gallows’ Eve

13. Houses of Heaven
Within/Without
Felte Records
Houses Of Heaven’s Within/Without is a triumph of production and design as a function of songcraft, a vision of post-punk that exists at a juncture of thoughtful and precise construction, and passionate delivery. Picking up from the dubby haze of their debut, there’s a specific clarity of vision and sound that the California trio invoke, allowing them to explore blossoming synthpop (“Pisces”), mechanized rock (“Flesh Technique”) and manic, breakbeat-infused sprints (“Sightline”) with equal aplomb. Simply, the band have found a unity in their approach that is deft and subtle, so that even those songs that bring in guest vocalists (with both Douglas McCarthy and Ms. Boan providing standout contributions) are of a piece with their surroundings. Precise but fluid, and consistent but varied, Houses of Heaven made one of the year’s most fascinatingly protean albums. Read our full review. Within/Without by Houses of Heaven

12. Kontravoid
Deteachment
Artoffact Records
If Cam Findlay’s formula were at all easy to imitate, trust us, today’s scene would be lousy with people trying to ride his coattails by linking classic electro breaks to punishing darkwave and industrial programming in knock-off iterations of the style that’s established Kontravoid as a fixture on dark dancefloors for the past half decade. It clearly isn’t, and that means modern listeners have but one hook-up for the uncut product they’re fiending for, and Kontravoid’s chemistry hasn’t failed them yet. From the full-bore rhythmic artillery and choral stab assault of “Reckoning”, to the chill midnight pulse of “Fading”, to the savvy tapping of Nuovo Testamento’s Chelsey Crowley for throwback freestyle confection “Losing Game”, Detachment pushes Findlay’s reach into a handful of neighbouring territories without forsaking the spine-whipping grooves his empire was built upon. Read our full review.
Detachment by Kontravoid

11. Sacred Skin
Born in Fire
Artoffact Records
Sacred Skin’s sophomore album Born in Fire draws from the same new wave cool that informed their debut, taking the band to ever more breathtaking heights through songcraft and performance. To the former quality, the band have no shortage of great, hummable hooks and know exactly how to get them across; the album is built so that it’s most bombastic and passionate moments are complimented by its groovy and soulful entries. Stylistically, the band show both range and inventiveness, but also taste and consideration; when they bust out blazing guitar licks and synth percussion it’s because because the song calls for it. Similarly, frontman Brian DaMert is effortlessly charismatic and sincere, never dwarfed by the grandeur of their ambitions, or mawkish when sentimental. Born in Fire is an album in the classic sense, and fantastic one at that. Read our full review. Born in Fire by Sacred Skin

10. Tryphème
Odd Balade
Artoffact Records
It’s rare for a record as subtle and ethereal as Odd Balade to be so addictive, and yet few records this year felt as easy to cue up just one more time after they’d run to their conclusion for the umpteenth time on a quiet summer night. Signalling a massive shift away from the abstract and understated experimentalism of Tiphaine Belin’s previous releases, Odd Balade embraces the lush, shimmering, and reflective mood of classic 4AD and shoegaze records, and uses that aesthetic to bridge darkwave, art pop, and even some hints of classic French pop. Don’t mistake the unified and peaceful atmosphere for one of simplicity, though; the mathematical unveiling of opener “Clio” belies Belin’s compositional chops, the watery strings of “Dancing In The Rain” are offset by a subtle shuffle beat which reframes its Bel Canto-like ambience, and then there’s the slowburn masterclass of “Sandy Family”, the soundtrack to a Lynch/Truffaut collaboration never realized in this universe. Read our full review.
Odd Balade by Tryphème

9. Dame Area
Toda La Verdad Sobre Dame Area
Mannequin Records
Catalan synthpunk duo Dame Area have never sounded as ferocious as they do on Toda La Verdad Sobre Dame Area, and considering the clamour and intensity of their preceding efforts, that’s saying something. Coming on the heels of the more melodic Toda La Mentira Sobre Dame Area, the duo double down on their mixture of clanging industrial percussion and minimal programming, bound together by dedication to all-consuming rhythms. For all their mechanized menace, the real triumph here is how Dame Area never fully give in to the machine, using Silvia Konstance’s sometimes steady, sometimes unhinged chants to not only humanize these songs, but to bend them into new shapes, with synth sequences, organic drums and sequenced elements all parting ways to allow her passage through their rough terrain. No album this year harnessed cacophany so expertly, nor with such passion. Read our full review. MNQ 166 Dame Area – Toda La Verdad Sobre Dame Area LP by Dame Area

8. Tassel
A Sacrifice: Unto Idols
self-released
“Oh, we got both kinds of music: goth and industrial!” It’s an old joke we’ve been making for years before I Die: You Die was even conceived, but no record this year let us have our cake and eat it too the way A Sacrifice: Unto Idols did, while also heralding the arrival of a band capable of getting us to think about the convoluted intersections between those traditions in fresh new ways after a couple of years of promising EPs. With rhythms calling back to Test Dept as much as Batcave sex beat, Phoenix’s Tassel walk the razor’s edge between ‘difficult’ early industrial experimentation and modern death drive minimalism a la Hide. And the gothic flair they’re adorning that rigid skeleton in is less garden variety Christian Death pantomime than it is a reminder that the broader post-punk world of the early 80s allowed for all of these darker textures to coexist. Read our full review.
A SACRIFICE: UNTO IDOLS by tassel

7. Nox Novacula
Feed the Fire
Artoffact Records
Seattle’s Nox Novacula have been threatening to make a record like Feed the Fire for a while , serving up both deathrock purism and broader electronic darkwave stylings with steely conviction. It’s a balance that seems natural but can be difficult to pull off without diluting the former’s punk attitude or the latter’s mood and atmosphere. Nox Novacula thread that needle by letting their anxious fury lead the way, whether raging out (“Disappear”), or issuing portentous warnings (“Plague”). Hell, their restless outrage is so potent that even it’s absence can be striking; the band’s affecting turn to minimalism and sentiment on “Stay” is all the more impactful in contrast to the attack of “Wolves” and vocalist Charlotte Blythe’s anthemic delivery on “No Forgiveness”. Nox Novacula seize the dread and charged atmosphere of the moment, and match it with glorious, unblinking defiance. Read our full review. Feed The Fire by Nox Novacula

6. Dark Chisme
self-titled
self-released
It’s no secret that the darkwave boom didn’t diminish much in 2024, and thankfully that’s meant higher standards for listeners even as it means higher stakes for bands. Simply aping Boy Harsher isn’t enough to cut it on today’s dancefloors; younger and more discerning club goers demand more, and Seattle’s Dark Chisme delivered in the form of a record which, frankly, most bands who’d been honing their sound for five years would give their eyeteeth to release, let alone one who formed in the last year like Christine Gutierrez and E. With minimalist arrangements that put Gutierrez’s dynamic vocal charisma in the spotlight, and strung along by savvily infectious hooks and direct sound design, DJs across North America (and increasingly further afield) were gifted with a ready made arsenal of club killer. A debut this strong made it impossible to not get on board the Dark Chisme bandwagon this year. Read our full review.
Dark Chisme by Dark Chisme

Thanks for reading, folks! Tune in tomorrow for our favourite five records of the year.

The post I Die: You Die Top 25 of 2024: 15-6 appeared first on I Die: You Die.

A lot can happen in the space of thirteen years, and with this being our fourteenth crack at identifying our favourite twenty-five records to be released in the calendar year it’s impossible for us not to think about what’s changed and what hasn’t in the styles of music (and even in some case the same artists) which have been represented in each iteration of our Year End list. Are the differences between this year’s list and 2011’s more the result of broader changes within dark music or personal changes in the tastes of two increasingly middle-aged goofs from Vancouver? Who’s to say? Certainly not us, which is as good of a way as any to reiterate that this, as always, is a wholly subjective exercise – we always want to hear other folks’ opinions regarding their faves of the year so long as differences of opinion are recognized as that, differences of opinion not fact (a nigh impossibility online today, we know, but we’re dreamers). In any case, let’s dig into entries 25-16!

25. Lustmord
Much Unseen Is Also Here
Pelagic Records
The first standalone LP of original solo material from Brian Williams’ Lustmord in four years, Much Unseen Is Also Here arrived in the wake of the sprawling The Others project, a series of releases documenting Lustmord’s influence on everyone from Enslaved to Zola Jesus. With the plaudits taken care of, Williams is back to work at what he does best here – pushing the dark ambient sounds he pioneered in ever richer but still eerily subtle directions, with all manner of acoustic and wind instrumentation being deployed (to torture an extended mataphor, Williams employs the grammar but not the rhetoric of symphonic and cinematic composition). On pieces like “An Angel Dissected”, Williams wields the harrowing yet immaculately tasteful set of sound design and compositional tools he’s sharpened over a career spanning more than forty years with the eye of a sculptor and the cold-bloodedness of a butcher. Read our full review.
Much Unseen Is Also Here by Lustmord

24. Normal Bias
Kingdom Come
Synthicide
Matt Weiner of TWINS and Chris Campion of Multiple Man’s long-awaited first LP as Normal Bias certainly delivers on the funky body music stylings of their 2022 debut EP, but also demonstrates the duo’s burgeoning synthpop chops. With EBM as a rhythmic foundation, they make a meal of their melodies and arrangements, with clever dips into italo, Kraftwerkian electro-pop, blue-eyed soul and beyond; songs like “Holy” and “Earth Dies Burning” strike a careful balance between soulful melodics, danceability and stylized production that makes use of classic sounds to tasteful effect. It’s the rare album that feels both so novel and timeless in its execution, and with the tunes, the poise and the danceability to back it all up. Read our full review.
Kingdom Come by Normal Bias

23. LEATHERS
Ultraviolet
Artoffact Records
Shannon Hemmett’s LEATHERS project has existed for almost as long as her tenure as a member of Vancouver post-punk darlings ACTORS. The long wait for her debut album was defined by a slow but steady stream of songs that showed a marked focus in on the project’s aesthetics and on Hemmett’s own development as a songwriter and frontperson. Ultraviolet is the culmination of that development process, and the rewards are ample; borrowing some neon synthwave markers and applying them to sweet electropop tunes, it brims with poise and class, never needing to rely on cheap throwback production markers to sell its songs. The stunning “Day For Night” is the LEATHERS experience in a nutshell, shoegazy atmosphere and dreamy reverie rolled up into a tightly written ballad delivered with unshowy confidence and sincerity. The saying goes that good thing that comes to those who wait, and Ultraviolet is the graceful, cool case in point. Read our full review. Ultraviolet by LEATHERS

22. Unit 187
Killcure
Metropolis Records
Simply put, Killcure feels like a record that shouldn’t exist. By all rights, there’s no way that Vancouver industrial act Unit 187 should have been able to return after the tragic loss of vocalist and co-founder Tod Law nearly a decade ago, and yet 2024 brought us an LP of material featuring both unfinished songs from Law and brand new material, all rendered with the kind of high-definition acrimony that has always been the band’s trademark. OG member John Morgan is joined by longtime associates Chris Peterson and Ross Redhead, and new vocalist Kerry Vink-Peterson, who not only manage to capture the roiling, cantankerous spirit of the classic material, but reinvent it via blasts of caustic synth programming, crashing percussion and waves of guitar noise, as ugly and invigorating as anything ever to bear the Unit 187 name. It’s a record that triumphs over death itself by being as mean and vicious as the world it was born into. Read our full review. KillCure by Unit:187

21. Kurs
Dreamer
Swiss Dark Nights
Kurs’ 2021 debut put forth a fully developed vision for electro-industrial music, stripping the compositional style of classic Front Line records down to its barest and coldest frame while imbuing the compositions with a ghostly miasma. With Dreamer, Valerio Rivieccio proves that Muter‘s strength was no fluke, creating an evenly flowing and self-contained experience of biomechanical dread and spectral suffocation which rewards repeat listenings and treating it as a unified work rather than a checklist of tracks. Enshrouding tight programming in the atmospherics of dark electro, Dreamer refreshes and revives the uncompromising menace of previous post-industrial masters. Scant few records these days demonstrate half of the interest in or aptitude for the styles and sub-genres Kurs trades in, but fans of them have an absolute masterclass in mood and execution to revel in. Read our full review.
Dreamer by Kurs

20. Spectres
Presence
Artoffact
Regardless of whether you’ve been checking in album by album or, like us, regularly catching them live, the shift Vancouver’s Spectres have been making away from their street punk and deathrock roots to the warmer and sunnier climes of C86 sounds and pure new wave has been a slow process. With Presence, that transformation feels complete. Connoting the likes of The Wake and My Favorite, it’s sometimes a weary record, sometimes a joyous one, but at all times one possessed by a surfeit of emotion and honesty, with Spectres’ always solid knack for hooks being buoyed up by rich and warm summer harmonies. Die-hard fans of their original, much more aggressive material may scoff, but even the gloomiest of goths and crustiest of punks are likely to melt by the time penultimate track “Falling Down” glides through their speakers. Read our full review.
Presence by SPECTRES

19. Pøltergeist
Nachtmusik
Bad Omen Records
Quickly sharpening themselves from a rough but intriguing proof of concept into a fully invigorating new presence on the Canadian scene, Calgary’s Pøltergeist approach anthemic, romantic post-punk of the Chameleons school from a decidedly metal perspective on Nachtmusik and the result is one of the freshest rock records of the year. While still rough around the edges, it’s a record packed full of immediate and lasting tracks, and the band’s got the ‘patting your head while rubbing your belly’ trick of shredding while brooding down pat on the Maiden-goes-peace-punk riffing of “Yesterday Fades” and the muscular stoicism of “Cold In September”. Rather than being formalist exercise in genre-bending for its own sake, the passion frontman Kalen Baker holds for all of the sounds, genres, and influences brought to bear on Nachtmusik is apparent, and points towards Pøltergeist continuing to wend a singular path through the Albertan hinterland. Read our full review.
Nachtmusik by Pøltergeist

18. Data Void
Strategies Of Dissent
Metropolis Records
Data Void, a collaboration between James Mendez of Jihad and Don Gordon of Numb, was always going to be aimed at dyed in the wool rivetheads. The issue of course, is that many such collabs and one-offs fall into the gap between classic aesthetics and modern production. Strategies Of Dissent has no such failings, though. There’s the rock solid programming of “Crash, Burn And Resurrect” that has all of the swing and punch of any classic number either member of Data Void might have had a hand in, updated just enough to suit modern tastes without sacrificing grit. On the flip side, closer “Echoes Of Ritualized Performance” absolutely nails the cinematic, dread-filled style of dark electronics so many newer acts shoot for but fall short of, with the right amount of violent guitar. Aging gracefully, or aging aggressively? For Data Void, they’re one and the same. Read our full review.
Strategies of Dissent by Data Void

17. XTR Human
Schrank
WIE EIN GOTT
Johannes Stabel has been zeroing in on the sound of his latest LP as XTR Human for years now, cultivating his body music bonafides with songs that grew ever more clamorous and strident with each release. SCHRANK is the culmination of those efforts, with Stabel showing that he not only knows his way around a club-ready banger, but that he can do it any number of ways; you’ll get songs that slot easily into the current techno crossover sound (“Neid”) next to numbers that draw deeply from classic wave (“Übeltäter”), and plain old club rave-ups (“EBM Train”). And through all of it you get Stabel himself selling the hell out of it, matching the intensity and pace of his material through vocal presence and no small amount of teutonic machismo and charisma. Play it at the club, play it in your home, play it in the gym, or the streets, SCHRANK is a record that makes its own sweaty, body-moving context wherever it goes. Read our full review. SCHRANK by XTR HUMAN

16. MVTANT
Electronic Body Horror
Dream
In one of the year’s most memorable concert moments, MVTANT set-off a fire alarm at Verboden festival with his smoke machine, then continued to perform through the deafening ringing to an unevacuated and enthusiastic crowd. That incident was a perfect metaphor for Electronic Body Horror, a slab of cool, punky tunes that pulse with livewire energy. Leveraging a small but effective toolset, MVTANT’s first proper LP is a raw expression of cyberpunk angst, replete with grimy digital funk, crushed samples, and vocals that ping pong between hissed threats and nervous breakdown howls. That might make it sound like a fraught or unpleasant experience, but it’s quite the contrary; every thudding kick and every hard-bitten synthline feels tangible and proximal, making the listener a participant in the record’s cathartic purges. In a year with no shortage of music that reflects how charged the world around us is, no album felt quite so immediate, nor so vital. Read our full review. MVTANT “Electronic Body Horror” by MVTANT

Come back tomorrow for entries 15-6 of our annual Top 25 countdown!

The post I Die: You Die Top 25 of 2024: 25-16 appeared first on I Die: You Die.

And so, another year ends here at I Die: You Die, but not before we go through our now well-established Year End routine. If you’re a new reader, it goes a little something like this; today we post some selections from various friends of the website, then we post out top 25 releases from Tuesday through Friday, with a wrap-up episode of the podcast on Friday. Then we take a hiatus from writing for the website for a fortnight (although we will be releasing our annual off-topic We Have a Commentary next week, and a special year end Pick 5 the following week). It all kicks off with the post below, so special thanks to our contributors this year, it’s always an enormous pleasure to see what they picked to tell our readership (and us!) about. There’s plenty to dig into, so don’t delay, and be ready to make some Bandcamp purchases.

Underworld, Strawberry Hotel
I enjoyed this album because it gives me the feeling of time travel. Some tracks feel like the future. Others escort you comfortably into the past. There’s this sense of a linear story that they capture with this album that has always been their own. And those lead synth hooks get me every time. Stand out tracks “Denver Luna” both the album version and the Euphoria mix with Kettama predating the album release. “Lewis In Pamona” is for fans of the classics, first time listener should invest the time in listening to the full album all in one play.
Strawberry Hotel by Underworld

Graywave, Dancing in the Dust
Graywave is a band that I have been following for a few years that I have put into a genre that I affectionately refer to as “dad-hat goth”. It’s usually music that I consider to be casually dark, but gets it’s message across with the music alone, and not by co-opting a traditional goth style. The pain feels actual and real. Think bands like Soft Kill, Garden of Mary, Eagulls and Cold Showers. Of those bands, I’ve considered Graywave to be the slickest sounding of them all. While there’s a big shoegaze element to it, I sometimes wonder if it’s more because it brings back that miserable feeling I had about myself in high school in the 90s than following any type of ruleset. In the few years I’ve been listening, Birmingham-based Jess Webberley hasn’t wasted one track as filler. Dancing in the Dust keeps that flow going by being an incredibly engaging full listening experience. Heavy and forlorn, I imagine this is what would happen if Chelsea Wolfe joined Asylum Party during her Hiss Spun era. Released via Church Road Records.
Dancing in the Dust by Graywave

Ashbury Heights, Ghost House Sessions, Vol. 1
Throughout their existence, The Ramones thought they were churning out listener-friendly Pop songs. They couldn’t fathom why the rest of world just didn’t see songs like “Beat on the Brat” or “Warthog” in the same light. Ghost House Sessions, Vol. 1 from Ashbury Heights is a collection of 25 Pop songs which run the gambit from perfect (“Hard Week”, “Is That Your Uniform”, “One trick Pony feat Massive Ego”) to damn-near perfect (“Sleeping With a Knife”, “Cutscenes feat. Danny Blu”). In a perfect Ramones world, you’d turn on the radio today and hear “Ghost Electric”.
Ghost House Sessions Vol. 1 by Ashbury Heights

Curses, Another Heaven
The album I can’t seem to get enough of this year is Curses’ Another Heaven. I’ve been a long time fan of Curses both through his creative remixes and solo work. Always on the edge of innovation, Curses has singlehandedly ushered back in the era of Gregorian Chant in electronic music in the titular song, but contemporizes it in a beautiful way. The entire album is the perfect example of progressive darkwave, with unexpected textures and layering throughout, along with care and consideration for songwriting. Favourite tracks include “Elegant Death” and “Helium” (featuring Marie Davidson). It’s refreshing to hear darkwave with brilliant hooks and inspired use of instruments.
Another Heaven by CURSES

Reflections, Shadow
Over the past few years, I’ve been absorbing releases in the ‘THALL’ category — a niche metal sub-genre championed by Vildhjarta and Humanity’s Last Breath. Their sound is defined by the inhuman guitar work of Calle Thomer and the genre-defining production of Buster Odeholm, often dubbed “Buster-core.” Humanity’s Last Breath’s 2023 album, Ashen, was a standout, pushing metal to its breaking point. I highly recommend it. THALL blends death metal and metalcore, distorting space, time, and rhythm into something arcane and unpredictable. It evokes detachment, dread, and euphoria, often leading listeners through twisting, deceptive breakdowns. Despite its chaos, there’s an implicit “trust” — a feeling that the music will guide you back to its origin. Sometimes it does.

Sometimes it leaves you in the cracks. The Minnesota-based band Reflections navigates this disorienting terrain, occasionally pushing its abstraction past its limits. Their track “Anhedonie” from the Shadow EP — a collaboration with Swedish artists Thomer and Odeholm — delivers some of the most beautifully unsettling moments I’ve experienced in metal in recent memory.

Shadow by Reflections

Haujobb, Machine in the Ghost
This close to Xmas is a nightmare for parents with kids in school: all I hear is my 10 year old massacring “Jingle Bells” on the piano, my 15 year old sent me to Whamhalla (probably on purpose, even if she denies it), and my wife got upset when I accused Mariah Carey of having a horrible voice. So the best I can do is to nominate Haujobb’s Machine In the Ghost as album of the year. I don’t do that because Dejan and Daniel are old friends of mine. It’s because they make magic together. Whenever they decide to do something, they do it properly. And always in a way that’s both challenging and pleasing. Great songs, amazing sounds, totally original and unique. In my book that’s the gold standard.
The Machine in the Ghost by Haujobb

Feyleux, Midnight Hearts
I’ve become pickier and a bit more jaded when combing through all the new post-punk and darkwave coming out at a seemingly relentless clip these days. After reading just the first paragraph of Bruce’s review of Feyleux’s album Midnight Hearts, I knew this album was going to be that diamond in the rough. Midnight Hearts is a darkwave album from start to finish, but it’s shrouded in the kind of mystique and beauty that made me find this genre so alluring in the first place. “Lunaria Swirls” is wintry darkwave that evokes some of the best music being released on Projekt Records in the 90s. Even the more uptempo pieces like “Still of Summer” and “The Empress” are ethereal in mood, with dreary guitar riffs and synthwork as swirly as it is cutting.

While I have an appreciation for all styles of music that fall under the umbrella of Our Thing, it’s the dreamy, floaty, elegant sort that makes my ears perk up in ways no other genre can. Midnight Hearts is a stunning first album, and one that hopefully signifies what Feyleux will do in the future.
Midnight Hearts by Feyleux

XTR Human, Schrank
XTR Human’s Schrank is a Swiss army knife that does it all – listening at home, workout playlist, getting hyped for a night out and great for dancing to in the club. It has a vibe that reminds me of scene dancefloor cuts I enjoyed in the 2000s but it feels fresh – it’s never deliberately nostalgic. Schrank cheers me up every time I listen to it, I think because there’s a real charisma at the heart of the release and it’s just so straight-up fun It’s like po-faced EBM with a very knowing grin and a nudge.
SCHRANK by XTR HUMAN

Dark Chisme, self-titled
I don’t always let a band’s live show influence how I feel about them as a whole — after all, you usually spend more time listening to a band’s recorded music than seeing them on stage. Dark Chisme are an exception, because even though the album released in July is great, their live shows are even better. Christine Gutiérrez’s energy is fierce, infectious, and empowering, while partner Erik Schneider is a brooding, propulsive presence on the instrumentation. “Beautiful Obsession Killer” is my standout track, the one I play to clear out the mental and emotional cobwebs, but their “Lucretia” cover transmits much of the same dark, steamy energy as the original — and it’s even better live. It’s been a pleasure to see the attention they’ve gotten here in Seattle, with frequent plays on KEXP, a mention in the Seattle Times year-end best-of list, and a recent hefty grant. They deserve it!
Dark Chisme by Dark Chisme

Kim Gordon, The Collective
Kim Gordon’s voice will always be associated with Sonic Youth, but returns to the forefront with her second solo effort The Collective. The Collective is an industrial trap New York no wave masterpiece, with Gordon exploring life through looping distorted drums, feedback, and art scene beat poet vocals in her signature monotone. Her lyrics often appear as simple pictures of day-to-day mundanity shadowing life’s dark patriarchal underbelly in almost a Lynchian way. Gordon spawned from the same 80s world that gurgled and puked out Foetus, Lydia Lunch, and Suicide, and The Collective‘s dirty mechanical meat throb pays allegiance to that time while bulldozing a modern path forward.
The Collective by Kim Gordon

Processor & Keep The Weak, Satin Tongue
Since 2020, Processor’s “Royal Leash” has been on repeat in my head, though with this year’s release of “Satin Tongue” (feat. Keep The Weak) it may finally be supplanted. While the EP may not feature anything quite as thumping as Royal Leash, it’s slower tempos do not lack in attitude. The track from which the album gets its namesake is a particular standout with a gentle, moody opening that swells into a beat that should cause anybody to bust into a swagger like they were the star of a gothic Saturday Night Fever.
Satin Tongue by Processor & Keep The Weak

Thanks so much to all of these pals for their contributions! Tune in tomorrow for the first part of the Senior Staff’s Top 25 releases of the year.

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Iron Sight
FOR THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS OF EASTERN EUROPE
self-released
Danish act Iron Sight has always had a few musical irons in the fire, mostly in the worlds of noise, power electronics and dark ambient, although notably their release as Loverman connected them to future r&b and electropop sounds. New EP For The Freedom Fighters of Eastern Europe isn’t quite as far afield as the latter release musically, although its combination of hard techno and gravel-voiced vocals does bring the project closer to rhythmic noise and some early aggrotech sounds. “Hard 2 Kill” feels straight up like a Noisex track, with its dungeon-shaking bass and kicks, so rich in saturation that the screamed vocals are constantly in danger of being dragged under the track’s wheels. “Leave ‘Em Lifeless” varies the kick patterns from straight four on the floor to more syncopated rhythms, almost funky if not for the shrieks and intense pads that get thinner and louder with each passing moment never allowing a groove to settle in. “Hey Little Piggy” is perhaps the most straightforward song, if not any more accessible than its predecessors; it’s possible to imagine a world where this gets spun for industrial dancefloors, although the fast moving techno arrangement is just a little too coated in ugly, overdriven noise to fit in with all but the nastiest modern crossover sounds. It’s intense stuff, but in the way where the danger feels more invigorating than oppressive.
FOR THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS OF EASTERN EUROPE by IRON SIGHT

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
Driving Black
COP International
After more than a decade of on again, off again gigging, mp3 demos, and live sets making their way online, the formal reemergence of legendary dark post-punk act Red Lorry Yellow Lorry featuring the original core duo of frontman/songwriter Chris Reed and Dave Wolfenden is here. Bands who formed after the Lorries originally split now have kids old enough to form bands shaped by them, making the path from the group’s grinding machine-like origins to the present too winding to follow, but there’s a good amount of Driving Black‘s groove-based focus which connects them to their roots, with the sprawling “Piece Of My Mind” recalling their connection with peers like Wire and Hüsker Dü. The rhythmic obsession of the band remains unchecked even if their actual sound points to a broader interest in general rock and country grooves which had begun to hang about the corners of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry as early as 1989’s Blow (see the tightly controlled drones of “Chickenfeed”). Reed’s vocals, once that harrowing cyclone of condemnatory baritone, now have a much more approachable and world-weary observational tone as he refers to disillusionment and futility. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry are back, but certainly no less battered by recent hardships as any of us.
Driving Black by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

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Vision Video

Just ahead of next week’s year end coverage, we’re playing catch-up on this week’s podcast. Four records from Black Nail Cabaret, Orange Sector, Vision Video, and Kite released over the past year which we did not formally write up or discuss but wanted to be on record about before releasing our Top 25 records of the year are taken up here. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Cardinal Noire
Vitriol
Artoffact Records

“Brappin’ out like it’s 1984”: Cardinal Noire’s Bandcamp biography stands as a succinct mission statement which, frankly, covers a good portion of the band’s appeal and what the newcomer needs to know about the Finnish duo. Vintage Skinny Puppy, in all its clatter and density, remains Kalle Lindberg and Lasse Alander’s primary muse, and while they veer from the electro-industrial path hewn by those legends on their various side projects (Protectorate, W424) they always cleave to it on Cardinal Noire LPs. Third full-length Vitriol is no exception in that regard, and thus its strengths and distinctions are likely more perceptible to (and possibly of concern to, one way or the other) the already initiated.

For those new to the party, yes, that certainly sounds like the phrase “rot and annihilate” being reiterated on “Gun Metal”; as always Cardinal Noire know on which side their bread’s buttered. Heck, one could almost read the entirety of Vitriol‘s title track as an extended riff and variation on the “shores of Pluto” refrain in “Convulsion”, but it’s difficult to count such homage as a flaw when it’s so up front and when the syncopation of the bubbling yet snapping bass programming and gunshot snares is so solid. Execution like that is what’s separated Cardinal Noire from so many others who’ve taken a page or two from Puppy; Vitriol is defined by rhythmic density, with the buttressing of dense, menacing programming with a constant battery of drum fills, the duo’s metal chops once again coming across more in the ornamenting and presentation of Cardinal Noire’s ethos than in the form of actual riffing.

There are a few moments of respite in the assault, though traditional melodies, vocal or programming based, are so rare in Vitriol‘s steely presentation that when the slow, bittersweet melancholy of “Diatribes”‘s vocal refrain and its stained glass chimes emerge into the spotlight the record takes on an air of wistful remorse. The deep space cinematics of “Precious Hearts” are of an entirely different cast from both that lament and the aggression of the rest of the record, pointing to a parallel dimension in which Lindberg and Alanderbegan work as a black metal band and gradually moved wholly into dreamy symphonics and ambience. It’s certainly not the showiest or most impressive moment on Vitriol but it’s proof that the duo’s chops extend well beyond the Vancouver school business at hand.

And that’s the nature of Cardinal Noire in a nutshell – the obvious glee the band feel in doing exactly what they’re doing with this project regardless of their extra-curricular interests or talents is palpable. How much you’ll take from Vitriol is likely wholly dependent on your feelings about the sources from which they’re drawing, but for fans of this style there’s simply no one doing it better today.

Buy it.

Vitriol by Cardinal Noire

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Unit: 187
KillCure
Metropolis Records

When Unit: 187 co-founder and vocalist Tod Law passed away in 2015, the assumption was that the Vancouver industrial project would be retired. And for the better part of the last decade, there was nothing to suggest otherwise, until the recent surprising emergence of a new line-up featuring original member John Morgan along with longtime associates Chris Peterson, Ross Redhead and Kerry Vink-Peterson, and new LP KillCure. Made up of both brand new material and songs Law had been working on before his death, it’s a record that simultaneously pays homage to the cult act’s thrashing, misanthropic take on industrial, and starts a new chapter in its legacy.

There’s a special thrill in hearing new 187 material after so long, and for it to sound as vital as it does here, picking up almost directly from the roiling, mean ethos of 2010’s Out for Blood. there’s no shortage of the band’s signature synth-driven grooves and mechanized riffs, rendered for full-impact at high volume. Hearing Law’s voice on opener “Glamhammer” is thrilling, his caustic vocal delivery accompanied by pinchy guitar harmonics and mid-tempo programming that builds with inevitable force to a violent chorus. That rough and ready sound that defines their best material is in full-effect throughout, from the industrial rock attack of “Famous Faces” to the towering climax of the title track, the record has the hallmark attitude of vintage Unit: 187. Songs are produced and mixed to keep matters gritty, forceful, and sharp; check the swooping synths and thudding drums of “New Beginning” for just one acerbic, hard-bitten example.

For her part, Vink-Peterson does a bang-up job stepping in as singer, bringing the right kind of vitriol to the proceedings, never imitating Law’s hiss, but staking her own territory on each song on which she’s featured. A re-recording of a classic album cut like “Dick” (originally featured on the band’s sophomore LP Loaded) runs the risk of seeming like a pale imitation of past glories, but she reinvents it as a punky fist-pumping anthem, a move that is exhilarating to hear realized. Whether spitting out bars on the heavy-bottomed “Overrun”, or taunting the listener over the wave of distortion that sweeps through “Eyes Open”, Vink-Peterson is fully-committed, hostile and vicious as the blasting, crashing songs require.

A healthy amount of skepticism for a project like KillCure is absolutely natural: to be frank the chances of reactivating a band so notoriously cantankerous this many years on and living up to fans’ expectations aren’t great. And yet this new iteration have all the brutality and pessimism you could want from Unit: 187, delivered unblinkingly and with zero hesitation. It’s weird to describe an album this ill-tempered as heartening, but then again there’s nothing like hearing a band spit in the face of an increasingly cruel and stupid world with this kind of conviction. Recommended.

Buy it.

KillCure by Unit:187

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Last week of regular coverage, folks, and therefore the last Tracks post of 2024! We’ll have a few more new releases to discuss this week and then we turn the page next Monday with our traditional “Friends Of” post, featuring some selections from pals and tastemakers from across our scenes before digging into our favourite records of the year.

Encephalon

CK 37, “8 bitars ren extas”
We were speaking a few weeks ago about the je ne sais quois which marks so much Swedish EBM, and hot damn if the new track from trio CK 37 isn’t a stellar example of it. Without skimping on the immediate and addictive punch of classic EBM, this homage to Commodore 64 binges of yore is jam-packed with poppy hooks and left-field squeals and blips that have had us running this one back a whole bunch this past week. Tip of the hat to Ville for sending this our way!
8 bitars ren extas by CK 37

SDH, “Lovers Wonder”
Recent Artoffact signees Semiotics Department of Heteronyms come through with a very strong electropop track to end the year off. “Lovers Wonder” lays bare a lot of the pop sensibility the Spanish duo have coyly flirted with in the past, revealing melodic vocals that while quite lovely don’t totally abandon their measured style of songwriting and production. It’s a nice step in a new direction for the act, who should be due for a new LP in 2025.
Lovers Wonder by SDH

Encephalon, “Like the Real Thing”
An absolute banger from our favourite Canadian electro-industrial concept rockers. Encephalon have always had some great club tunes that support their broader conceptual and musical complexities, and “Like the Real Thing” fits their mold to a tee; you get vocoded to accompany the powerful voice of Alis Device, a fast moving rhythm arrangement that blossoms into a massive climax, and lyrics that suggest the broader themes of the forthcoming Automaton All Along, due in 2025, and for which we are very excited.
Automaton All Along by Encephalon

Male Tears, “Little Doll”
Following up on this year’s Paradisco comes another slice of synth confectionery from Male Tears. Keeping the project’s interests in synthpop, freestyle, and electropop in harmony, a tune like this being so understated yet so immediately memorable speaks to how and why Male Tears have held on to so much of their initial goth and darkwave focused audience despite their move into pure pop.
Little Doll by MALE TEARS

Hello Moth, “Nothing Comes Between Us”
It’s always lovely to hear from Calgary’s glam electropop treasure Hello Moth, an act that we’ve been in love with since first catching them on a Terminus stage some years ago. As with the best of the project’s work new EP “Nothing Comes Between Us” is both genuinely touching and emotional, while also displaying a real mastery of how to get a song to seem huge and powerful without needing to go loud or forceful. Terrific stuff from an artist we’ve come to expect the extraordinary from.
Nothing Comes Between Us by Hello Moth

Kibble, “I Hurt Myself, Rejoice”
In case the GRABYOURCHRISTMASTREE didn’t totally scratch your itch for Christmas tunes guaranteed to furrow the brow of your Boney M loving grandmother as the eggnog’s being passed around, Alex Reed has you covered. Yes, the man who’s brought you scene-specific Yuletide fare like “Last Christmas Love Tore Us Apart” and 1000 Ho-Ho DJs’ “(Every Day Is) Xmas” is bringing you a pair of NINter solstice carols. We promise that the phrase “I wear this crown of shit” has never before been trilled with such bonhomie.
Head Like a Holy Night by Kibble

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Primitive State
Transmigration
self-released
London’s Primitive State make the kind of gritty, opaque electro-industrial that has always thrived in the underbelly of the genre, and stands in stark contrast to cleaner, more club-oriented sounds. Which is not to say that the music on new release Transmigration is beatless or lacking in rhythm, but that the style in which the music is presented makes a virtue of murkiness and plain ugliness to help its songs land. Opener “Rot” runs roughshod on a fast sequence of synths and drums with some added metallic percussion accents, but the layers of grimy reverb and the snarled, pinched vocals (reminiscent of Evil’s Toy or your preferred dark electro act) make the whole affair feel meaner and more actively hostile, before the double time finale that shakes the whole song apart. The eponymous song that follows picks right up from it in terms of tempo, with fast kick-snare programming, vocal samples and quavering synth pads that billow around its various clanks and groans. “Extraction Process” wraps it all up with a beefy synthline that could be put to use in a speedy techno-body track, but is instead dragged behind deliberate drum breakdowns, a halting, queasy approach that matches its increasingly manic screeches. Those who prefer their electro lo-fi, bleak and misanthropic will get their fill, and more besides.
Primitive State by Transmigration

Nordvargr
Resignation IV
Cyclic Law
The recent reissue and reactivation of Nordvargr’s Reignation project made for a wonderful cross-section of Henrik Björkk’s musical interests beyond the EBM and death industrial worlds where he initially staked his claim. Those records’ loose ambient techno ethos detours through a number of territories similarly further afield with Resignation IV, doubling down on the concrete aggression of recent dark techno as well as increasingly fractured styles of ambient production. The production on the kicks and the ambience which surrounds them on pieces like “No Tears Wasted” feels simultaneously airy and marked by analog media degradation, almost like a hauntological take on the cryptic and occluded techno body music of Vatican Shadow. Elsewhere, the dreamy and drippy ambience of “Aska” and the underwater pulse of “Runa” apply a palpable yet pleasant pressure with their pads and drones, swaddling the listener. None of this is to say that Björkk is using this trek into spacier sounds as an excuse to go soft: the clattering neo-classical stomp of “Resistance” sounds like a vintage slice of similarly unyielding Swedes In Slaughter Native, and the heated, woozy spaciousness of the wheezing drones of “Silent Command Echo” feels entirely sympatico with the sublime charnel vistas which Björkk’s had on lock for decades.
Resignation IV by NORDVARGR

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Haujobb – the Tomohiro Ishiis of industrial.

The criteria and membership of a (entirely hypothetical) industrial hall of fame is the subject of this week’s podcast. What sort of criteria would be used to evaluate a band’s legacy? Who’s a shoo-in? Which artists’ candidacies might inspire screaming matches and bare-knuckle brawls? How might we ensure that the rivethead equivalent of Harold Baines would not end up enshrined within these (again, entirely hypothetical) hallowed halls? We’re talking about all that plus the Sick New World cancellation. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Madil Hardis
Visionary Sadness
self-released

More often than not, it seems that the modern interpretation of darkwave largely revolves around clubbability; whether part of the wave of post-Boy Harsher electronic acts, or the projects that cleave closer to classic post-punk, the sound associated with the genre is driven by bass and rhythm rather than by atmospherics. Not so with the UK’s Madil Hardis, whose voluminous catalogue features well over 20 releases of varying lengths since 2020, and whose style is of the classic ethereal darkwave variety as pioneered by numerous eighties 4AD acts and carried on by the Projekt label into the nineties. The songs on new LP Visionary Sadness are simultaneously some of Hardis’ most accomplished in the milieu, while also highlighting the ways that the sound can be limited by adherence to moody texture over fully-formed songs.

To put that latter statement in context, it should be noted that the LP is made up of some fourteen tracks, all between one and a half and three minutes in length. Calling them sketches would be a bit unfair, but Hardis is clearly using each song as a canvas for one single idea, developing it and letting it flow into the next, eschewing traditional pop song structures in favour of total dedication to atmosphere and design. Taken in that context there’s a lot to sink your teeth into here; for one thing Hardis’ voice is absolutely lovely and well suited to the style, allowing her to be both an earthy anchor of real emotion and longing as on “I Found You Again” (which evokes any number of classic This Mortal Coil cuts), and also as a ghostly presence barely distinguishable from the cloudy pads and reverbs that surround her, like on “Warm Dark Places”. Her presence is inextricable from each track and is frequently the thing that grounds the composition, holding her ground against the sinister bells of “Unbreak the Pieces of Me” and providing emotional grounding to the sad progression of “Unrequited”.

The downside is that the brevity of each piece and the fluidity of their structure makes it harder to hold onto any given moment, as each track gives way to the next in a torrent of hazy synthetic ambience. This is of course somewhat intentional: Hardis has done plenty of more pop-oriented work with various collaborators (we are particularly fond of her songs with Ashbury Heights) and plenty of soundtrack work, meaning she could likely spin any one of these individual moments into a fuller arrangement should she so desire. Having elected instead to let each of these moments stand on its own merits, Visionary Sadness plays more as an album of brief ambient excursions, albeit one whose unity of mood and structure helps reinforce the total experience for the listener. While there are moments that would be interesting to hear developed further (such as the affecting organ-led opening minute or so of “Today or Tomorrow”), the record works in fine fashion if taken on its own emotional, atmospheric terms.

Buy it.

Visionary Sadness by Madil Hardis

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Curses
Another Heaven
Italians Do It Better

Another Heaven is sharply distinct from the last LP we got from Luca Venezia’s Curses, 2022’s Incardine. Sure, that record had a fair share of post-punk in it, but that was mixed in amongst the funky yet still dark italo and giallo-styled darkwave we recognized from Venezia’s remixing work, and tunes like “Miriam” and “Made In Shade” took a brooding and sober approach to the style. Another Heaven being so marked by a dreamy and at times upbeat approach to post-punk would have given us pause were it not for factors like Venezia’s established bona fides as a crate-digger and stylist and the presence of Italians Do It Better and Chromatics impresario Johnny Jewel behind the desk.

That context sets the stage for Another Heaven‘s disarming moves and style. It’s not really accurate to call a record which does so much with intimation and subtle shading of tone ‘surprising’ or ‘shocking’ in the traditional sense, but the fine line between the advance and retreat of Venezia’s vocals, between composition and production, is not an easy one to walk. But it’s one that Curses tread here and in a range of styles, from “H2SG”‘s Talk Talk-esque wistfulness to the early New Order/OMD melancholy of “Vanish” (a collab with Skelesys who released a similarly melodic and shimmering LP some weeks ago) to the rushing cinematic pulse of closer “Helium”, with some spoken word from Marie Davidson connoting early M83.

The strategy of releasing almost half of the album in a stream of pre-release singles (each with all of the previously released tracks appended, effectively leading to a four track EP circulating a month before the album) had mixed results; the range of the record was well-established by the time it was out, but some of the understated elegance of first single “Elegant Death” feels dulled after having heard it so many times appended at the back end of later singles. For those coming in fresh, its spectral lilt will still be entrancing, an ideal combination of Venezia’s weary croon and Jewel’s ethereal touch.

And then of course there’s the title track, which swiftly became my feel-good jam of the summer upon its release in May. Seven minutes of pastel-smeared DX7 bells, orch hits, and electro breaks, it’s Book Of Love heading to Westminster Abbey to perform a Handel anthem, and no other piece of synthpop released this year sounded half as divine. It alone would be worth the price of admission, but bracketed by the delicate restraint of the rest of the record only underlines its strength as a part of Another Heaven‘s winding path through roads less travelled.

Buy it.

Another Heaven by CURSES

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Oh shit, it’s December. Maybe two more weeks of coverage before our annual year end coverage kicks off, and we have quite a lot to get to before then in terms of records and catch-up listening, plus revisiting of records for the top 25 assessment. That’s not all we have going on though, as our friends at Vancouver’s Invisible Orange have asked us to co-present the upcoming Lana Del Rabies show in Vancouver featuring tourmates God Is War, and local support from Xiphoid Dementia and Exeunt. You may recall LDR made our favourite record of 2023, so getting to see them perform live early in 2025 should be a treat – we’re hoping to see local folks there, and hey, if you’re in the PNW why not considering coming down for it. Until then, here’s another edition of ye olde Tracks for your listening pleasure.

Un Hombre Solo

Black Magnet, “Damage Device”
Full disclosure, this edition of Tracks is being written with a massive hangover for half the Senior Staff, so the prospect of hearing an excoriating new joint from American industrial metal act Black Magnet might not seem like a very pleasant experience. On the contrary however, there’s a caustic quality to the band’s sound that burns away the haze and leaves the mind raw and ready, a function of how developed their grindy sound design and mechanical chug have gotten without losing the immediacy or overpolishing things. Paint peeling music for an age where we could use more of it.
Damage Device by Black Magnet

Give My Remains To Broadway, “Far From Here”
Chilly debauchery holds court on the new EP from Toronto enfants terrible Give My Remains To Broadway. Speedy and spiteful numbers like this connote cold walks home from keggers in third floor Kensington Market walkups and regret. They’re racing ahead of many of their peers with their release schedule and ferocity, keep up or get left behind.
This Party Sucks by Give My Remains to Broadway

Matteo Tura, “Molotov Cocktail”
Italian producer Matteo Tura has established themselves via a small but potent catalogue of mid-tempo techno-body bangers, tracks that recall Gessafelstein and the Hacker at their most groovy. New EP Disobey Club has plenty of that, but we’re especially taken by “Molotov Cocktail”, where some post-punk style bass acts as the hook and mood-setter, yielding a very different but not unwelcome blend of sounds to the release. Whether Tura will follow it up with more songs in this vein is unclear, but we’d certainly be happy to hear them explore it further.
DISOBEY CLUB by Matteo Tura

Misfortunes, “Μια Ιστορία να Αρνηθείς (A Story to Deny)”
Ioakim Vasileiadis has been releasing synthwork as Misfortunes since 2017, but his first single on Swiss Dark Nights is the first time we’ve bumped into him. This number shows a solid sense of what works and what doesn’t in terms of the pace and palette of minimal wave, and perhaps most impressively finds just the right ways of expanding upon and veering away from the track’s immediate presentation, something rare in a style which is often fixated on repetition to the point of its own detriment.
A Story To Deny by Misfortunes

Un Hombre Solo, “Clepsidra”
We’re a bit behind on this October release from NYC’s Un Hombre Solo, but we’d be remiss in not mentioning it in this space. Like a lot of the act’s other material there’s a pleasing minimalism to the two tracks on cassette release Hombre Deprimido, but the anger we’re hearing on “Clepsidra” is something else entirely. The combination of shouted vocals, hard hitting drums and some sharp synth strings is really quite effective, and has us wondering when the next LP might be coming down the pike.
HOMBRE DEPRIMIDO by UN HOMBRE SOLO

Null Device, “Baby, It​’​s No Longer Cold Outside (Because of Climate Change)”
Lastly, the fine folks at Elektrovox have teamed up with grabyourface to bring us grabyourchristmastree, a comp sagely branded as being “by goths who hate Christmas music”. Exhibit A: Null Device updating the creepily coercive “Baby It’s Cold Outside” for the modern day. All proceeds are going to cat shelters in the UK and France, so dig deep, but be warned, thanks to the UK’s oddball ‘#1 Christmas single’ tradition you’re likely to bump into everything from Frankie Goes To Hollywood covers to the horrors of Mr. Blobby elsewhere.
GRABYOURCHRISTMASTREE by Null Device

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Trellick
Meatgrinder
self-released
The artwork for Scots industrial project Trellick has generally leaned towards brutalist shapes and structures, an appropriate visual accompaniment to the project’s rough sonic textures. New EP Meatgrinder finds further developments afoot, as elements of EBM and dark electro have come more to the fore, contrasting the rhythmic noise like origins of the project. The bassline for “Those Other Escapes” certainly recalls modern body music sounds, emerging late in the track from amid ghostly wind and far-off vocals. “State of Fear” picks up, revolving around a simple synthloop that provides a solid foundation for a rotating arrangement of distorted percussion sounds, growing denser and bleaker as more and more static noise make their way into the mix. The suggestion of abandoned and consequently haunted cityscapes is driven home through the harsh minimalism of closer “People Used to Live Here”, where encroaching noise serves as a audio metaphor for urban decay. It’s a fine contrast with both the title track and “The Ugly Kind of Crying” which go much larger and more immediately impactful, the former with corrosive doses of acid, and the latter via big beat-touched programming, a track suitable for raves in the abandoned concrete plant. It’s all hard-hitting and austere while never succumbing to hopelessness – the tempered anger at the state of things serves as Trellick’s accelerant, burning cleaner and brighter than ever before.
Meatgrinder by Trellick

Blakmoth
Beh​ö​lder
self-released
Baltimore producer Blakmoth’s turned out a wide ranging yet still distinct slew of releases, both long and short form, in the years since we’ve started tracking his work. While they’ve ranged in theme and delivery, the overarching alchemical mixture of moods and emotions brought about through his use of of drones always carries a particular register, and new release Beh​ö​lder (too short for an LP, too long for an EP) maintains that current despite field testing a range of sounds in relatively short order. By the standards of dark ambient Beh​ö​lder feels fast-moving and varied, never holding to one tone or toolkit for very long. The mournful strings which sweep downward through “Mörte Gale” is somewhat reminiscent of how acts like Gorgyra and Randal Collier-Ford have integrated ancient folk sounds into their atmospheres, while the slowly rotating winds and pads of “Blood In The Furrows” manages to carry the chilling horror of classic Megaptera out into the realm of cosmic dark ambient in just four minutes. That range makes Beh​ö​lder as good a jumping on point for Blakmoth as any release we’ve heard from him, but even the neophyte will in short order begin to feel the distinct, fatalistic undertow which defines his work and ultimately distinguishes him from those other points of comparison.
Behölder by BLAKMOTH

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Novakill

It’s a down the pipe two albums episode of the podcast this week, as we discuss the cinematic body disco of Molasar and the late period dark electro/electro-industrial hybrid of Novakill’s first record. We’re also discussing the Cleopatra Records AI music controversy, plus announcing the Vancouver spot on the Lana Del Rabies/God Is War tour which we’re co-promoting. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Boar Alarm
Automatic For The Dead People
The Starving Penguin

Nominally a solo project intended to work within the style plied by Fredrik Djurfeldt as one half of Severe Illusion, Boar Alarm quickly skewed away from the minimalist EBM of debut Conform To Decay with the much noisier Under The Surface. To the surprise of no one who’s been tracking Djurfeldt’s voluminous recent work (at a quick glance, I count four other full lengths released across three different projects in the last twelve months), Automatic For The Dead People delves further into the colder realms of pure industrial squelches, feedback, and trembling drones.

The loops which make up much of Automatic offer something more of a hypnotic, repeating foundation than Djurfeldt’s other projects like Analfabetism. But “rhythm” in a traditional sense doesn’t really communicate the effect of the flatlining kicks which sit at the base of “Eyeless”‘ pile of scraping feedback. Even when rhythm is given a more traditional place in the mix there’s little in the monomaniacal skitter of “Move” and the jackhammer of “Cannibal Hate” (the latter somewhat reminiscent of Author & Punisher’s pneumatic triggers) to suggest EBM.

Despite not filling every moment and corner of each track with washes and ambience if not outright pure noise as we’ve heard elsewhere from Djurfeldt of late, the way that industrial pioneers would establish and then disrupt loops, either by altering them or simply slathering them in additional noise in a chaotic manner is a touchstone on Automatic. Sampling what sounds like a red-lined programming glitch and tossing it into the back half of an already heavily syncopated loop of frapped out kicks on quavering album centrepiece “Dog Fever” is much more emblematic of the record than the comparative respite of “Never Believe” and “Stepping On Ants”‘ cold pulse (though those two cuts do hearken back to No More Alive Than You Deserve-era Severe Illusion). Hell, even the aptly titled “Silence” (cheekily clocking in at 2:42 rather than 4:33) doesn’t hold true to its titular promise, punctuating the silence with a three-second squall.

The cold, unblinking meanness which runs through effectively all of Djurfeldt’s work, from Severe Illusion to Analfabetism to the new Hexopthalma collaboration should be expected by anyone not going into Automatic For The Dead People completely blind. Here, piece by piece, the structural cornerstones which defined so much post-industrial music are pared down and chipped away at, leaving behind an unyielding and unsettling core though a process of addition via subtraction.

Buy it.

Automatic for the Dead People by Boar Alarm

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Lost Signal
Anatomy of Melancholy
Metropolis Records

Originally emerging in the futurepop era with the Tom Shear produced debut LP Catharsis, Charles Rehill’s Lost Signal has been only intermittently active in the years since, releasing a follow-up in 2006 along with a smattering of other tracks and short releases. Their new LP Anatomy Melancholy arriving nearly twenty years after its predecessor is something of a different animal than Rehill’s previous records, mostly forgoing club-ready material for more sad and staid songs, albeit ones that stay true to the project’s mournful and contemplative ethos.

In many ways that shift feels entirely appropriate for a new Lost Signal record in 2024, and to Rehill’s credit, both the production and his vocals have rarely sounded better. On the former point, the lush strings, glitched percussion and keys of “By a Thread” sound more fleshed out than anything the project has released up to this point, with each sound articulated in the mix to allow for the track to blossom into an even fuller and more emotional form for its climax. Similarly, “Fall on My Sword” (a title that hearkens back to the project’s early use of combat as metaphor for personal struggle) uses a simple percussion loop and sneakily propulsive bassline as a canvas for layers of pads and reverbs that feel both elegiac on the verse, and hopeful on the chorus. It’s a mood well-suited to Rehill’s vocals, which have taken on a quiet confidence that wasn’t always present in previous releases; the weight of experience present in his delivery really sells the introspection of the record, so that a number like single “Clover” sounds as and sincere as its mournful tone requires.

There are however more than a few moments where the album struggles under the weight of its heartache, and its gradual pacing. The closest thing to an uptempo number is “Bridges Burning”, and while it has some engine in its rhythm programming, its chorus and outro drop into half-time, which while appropriate for the loss and regret it expresses, saps its momentum and prevents any catharsis that might have resulted from a climax. That issue is even more pronounced on cuts like “For What It’s Worth”, which while busy in terms of carefully placed stereo percussion and synth flourishes, never feels like it progresses, mired in a gloom that while no doubt sincere is also very sedate. The fact that it’s followed by equally somber tracks in “Enough” and “Trail’s End” make the generally doleful tone of the record oppressive. Closer “Ebb” has a glimmer of hope in its chiming synths and processed breaks, but it feels slight coming off so much despondency.

So then, Anatomy of Melancholy is paradoxically Lost Signal’s most accomplished record from a production, songwriting and performance perspective, while also being hard to enjoy as a sustained experience. Sad rumination is Rehill’s native language as an artist, and it’s hard to fault him for leaning into it, but the pacing and overcast mood can very easily overpower many of the record’s subtler and more thoughtful charms, to the point that its best songs work better in isolation from the album’s disconsolate whole.

Buy it.

Anatomy of Melancholy by Lost Signal

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