Gothic BC

This Eternal Decay
Spettro
SwissDarkNights

The various members of Italian darkwave act This Eternal Decay all have musical pedigrees stretching back well before the band’s formation in 2018 and the more or less contemporaneous surge in interest in darkwave. Coming from tenures in Spiral69, Date At Midnight, and even Spiritual Front, they’d all have had plenty of time to hone their chops even if new LP Spettro wasn’t This Eternal Decay’s fifth LP in seven years. That record continues their run of releases in a wide-ranging but still familiar continental darkwave style.

While atmosphere and mood are This Eternal Decay’s fortes, they have more than enough methods at hand for conjuring it. The dreamy guitars and plinking melodies of “Red Orchid” are nicely offset by the compressed drones and pads which however throughout, while the deft guitar work on “A Matter Of Lies” draws the line between second wave goth and more recent and sleek post-punk. Additionally, the snap and immediacy of the leads and beats on most of the Spettro keeps things from ever getting too ponderous or insular, even at its most gloomy.

Speaking of beats, there’s maybe a bit more in the way of quantized, dancefloor-friendly programming on Spettro than on previous records, but even when it’s used to add a bit of punch to the record it’s generally complemented by dour, mopey guitar (“Cold Fear”) or distortion and chiming synthpop-styled leads (“Rise & Fall”). As with the actual genres and eras This Eternal Decay are drawing upon, there’s a real sense of taste and balance throughout.

For all of that polish and consideration, few of the tracks on Spettro rise beyond the de facto appeal of these various blends of darkwave executed competently in terms of composition or memorability (a possible trade-off of the band’s relentless release schedule), but then again none of them really fall below that median line, either. The variety and brevity of the record overall is part of its charm, and even if it never moves the needle to a significant degree it still uses it to trace some enjoyable passages.

Buy it.

Spettro by This Eternal Decay

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Front Line Assembly
Mechviruses
Artoffact Records

The idea of a remix album for Front Line Assembly’s 2018 video game soundtrack WarMech is a bit strange, to be honest. While very slickly produced by the venerable Vancouver post-industrial act headed by Bill Leeb, the record itself is very much of that EDM-influenced era of FLA, serving as a coda for Jeremy Inkel’s time as a member and co-producer, his tenure cut tragically short by his untimely passing. WarMech is a very good record, although not a particularly characteristic one, being both instrumental and very much a soundtrack in nature.

Then again, there’s a certain mutability to the songs that makes Mechviruses a blank canvas for each remixer, who take the tracks whichever direction feels right. The sheer variety of takes on display is evidence of what can be done with the high-def originals, in forms that feel both akin to the classic Front Line blueprint, and completely foreign to it. Finnish old-school post-industrialists Cardinal Noire inject the Vancouver sound right back into the tweaky bass music of “Heatmap” by using the song’s rubbery melodics as a counterpoint to clangy percussion and shrieked vocals, while new body music act MVTANT play up the rhythm, transforming it from pumping side-chain to funky syncopated electro. Belgian electro-darkwave act ULTRA SUNN rebuild “Mechvirus” into one of their own distinctive dancefloor cuts, complete with the deep-voiced vocals of singer Sam Huge, that close to home approach mirrored by Ayria and Seb Komor’s synthpop version, each fitting the song’s pinging melody into their respective milieu.

Most interesting is how the record’s three separate versions of “Molotov” come out entirely different frpm one another, intersecting but feeling entirely distinct. The version by the unlikely trio of s:cage, Famine and Lys Morke is all broken beats and skittering percussion, with snatches of chanteuse Morke’s voice slipping between the rapidfire glitches and breaks. Meanwhile, Ottawa electro-industrialists Encephalon leverage the track’s existing neon-future textures to create a a full on cyberpunk club banger, adorned with vocoder and complimentary layers of synth and drum programming. Finally, Seeming’s Alex Reed goes full singer-songwriter with his undeniably great tale, pulling out and recontextualizing whole sections and crafting them into an affecting and uplifting anthem. It’s bizarre to consider that one of the best protest songs to come out of the industrial genre in recent years is a remix of a song from a video game soundtrack, but there’s no denying that Reed’s insistence that “Revolution is showing up” strikes a very real chord from the first listen.

Truthfully, the strangeness of Mechviruses as a concept is justified by the breadth of the results. You wouldn’t peg New York post-punkers Bootblacks as a great match for Front Line’s cybernetic aesthetics, but the dubby version of “Force Carrier”, complete with washes of twangy guitar, is such a left turn it’s hard to not to take notice of it, and that’s just one example. It might be Front Line Assembly’s name on the album cover, but make no mistake, this release is about the personalities of the contributing remixers as artists, and the persnality that they bring to the already somewhat outre-for-FLA originals is the draw.

Buy it.

Mechviruses by Front Line Assembly

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Vancouver is buried under a layer of snow at the time of this writing, although that’s not much of an issue for us; we’ve got plenty of music to catch up on while we’re holed up in the HQ. We mentioned in this space that 2025 seems to be shaping up nicely already in terms of new releases and news of forthcoming albums from artists we dig, and indeed, there’s been a few nice surprises already. If you don’t check out our reviews, or just look at the names you recognize, we’d encourage you to check the Friday Observer posts, where a lot of fresh shorter form releases get covered, it’s often where some of the most interesting new stuff we end up following makes its first appearance on the site. Not to take away from the institution that is Tracks though, one of our oldest and most favourite things to put together on a weekly basis. See below!

General Dynamics

Kite, “Heaven n Hell”
We praised the turn away from the lovely but admittedly sad-bastard sound of recent singles when they put out “Heartless Places” a few weeks ago, so hearing another cut that matches that song’s more upbeat delivery. Make no mistake, this is still that very unique melancholy the Swedish duo have had on lock since their debut way back in 2008, but the with the tempo behind it and some notably scrapy sounds in the mix, it fits nicely into the band’s catalogue of down-to-mope anthems, and has earned them enough of a following that they’ve been able to mount huge concept shows like the figure skating business they put together this past weekend. Forever one of our favourites.
Heartless Places / Heaven N Hell by Kite

Nightcrawler, “Course Navette Part II”
The second of Berlin label Kindcrime’s Cage Of Flesh tapes comes with an absolutely stacked list of modern EBM producers: Cyan ID, Statiqbloom, Unconscious, T_error 404, etc. Picking up where the previous tape left off, you’re getting a nice representation of how dark electro textures and less monochrome palettes are chipping away at the austere, monochromatic edifice of TBM. This reworking of Spanish producer Nighcrawler’s 2024 single, lending it some new beat styled atmospherics, is a nice example therein.
CAGE OF FLESH II [KDC246] by Various Artists

Twin Tribes, “Monolith (Tobias Bernstrup remix)”
Texas goth and darkwave phenoms Twin Tribes put out our favourite record of 2025 in Pendulum, a record that had no shortage of great tunes, along with a nice dose of club-ready cuts and singalong hooks. 2025 brings a suite of remixes of the single “Monolith” from names as notable as QUAL, Ultra Sunn and Tobias Bernstrup, whose version of the moody cut brings out an unlikely stripe of futurepop appeal. Listen to that rapidfire gating and synth bass and how it interacts with the grave vocals of the original to hear what we’re talking about.
Monolith Remixes: V by Twin Tribes

General Dynamics, “Creepin’ In”
WIlliam Maybelline (Qual, Lebanon Hanover) teaming up with Emad Dabiri (Sarin, Human Performance Lab, and umpteen other projects connected to his X-IMG label) for a 2022 LP under the General Dynamics handle was an unexpected surprise which made all the sense in the world as soon as you heard about it, and the record delivered on that promise. A forthcoming follow-up is good news for all those who appreciate both producers’ abilities to work classically grimy and lo-fi EBM and dark electro sounds into the modern dark club template, and this teaser track looks to be continuing on in that tradition ably. We’ll definitely have a full review of Where Animals Play when it sees release in April.
Where Animals Play by General Dynamics

Empusae & Onasander, “Astronyx”
Speaking of collabs which make sense, the highly prolific run Nicolas Van Meirhaeghe has been on of late as Empusae continues apace with one of two new team ups (the other with Pilgrimage To Pleroma). Produced alongside longtime ambient/experimental producer Maurizio Landini’s current sound-design focused Onasander project, the Umbrosyne record is an impressively sculpted piece of work, much of which fits squarely in the cosmic side of dark ambient, but with occasional flickers of some of the cinematic bombast both producers are known for, as this track shows.
Umbrosyne by Empusae & Onasander

Bigod 20, “Body to Body (DSTRTD SGNL Mix)”
DSTRD SGNL is the production duo of Stephan Kessler (Aircrash Burear) and Torben Schmidt of Infacted Recordings, a couple of EBM OGs if there ever were any. While a lot of their previous releases have leaned a little further into the EDM style than we’d generally be interested in covering, we can’t front on this remix of the Bigod 20 classic “Body to Body”, which doesn’t skimp on the distorted, gritty vocals of the original while pumping up some of the production in a style that feels pretty of a piece with millennial and early 2000s club oriented electro. Be curious to hear them take on some other cuts of comparable vintage in the future, see if they can strike the same balance of DJ appeal and classic recognizability.
Body To Body (DSTRTD SGNL MIX) by DSTRTD SGNL presents BIGOD 20

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Daast
Human Remains
Phage Tapes
The sweeping synths that open the new release from Manchester-based industrial act Daast may lull you into a false sense of security, but at least it’s short-lived; before long “All Your Saints are On Fire” is a minefield of fast-moving rhythmic noise percussion and glass-throated growling vocals, a template that sticks through most of Human Remains. While simple, it’s a plan of attack that the project finds plenty of different applications for, taking it into near dark-electro territory with snatches of warbling detuned synths on “Work Yr Body”, taking it into minimal synth via the T-800 factory on the title tracks, and invoking the classic Ant-Zen powernoise vibe on “High Rise” and “Tormentor”. The noisy menace of the record matches lyrical concerns on display; lines like “Reduce your screentime” and “Lust of the Goat/Wrath of Lion” don’t seem like they’d inhabit the same area code, but taken in aggregate they add to the record’s commanding misanthropy that wavers between calls for discipline, scorn and disappointment with full commitment. It’s gnarly stuff for certain, but no more so than the era it navigates, a grimy reflection not just of a callous world, but the dangers that inhabit it.
Human Remains by Daast

Blokkontrol
Blok 1
self-released
The period and style new Ukranian act Blokkontroll is tapping into is apparent from the initial attack of “Labarint”‘s frantic, acidic arpeggios and blocky kicks. 90s dark electro and EBM are the clear order of the day, with any number of Antler-Subway and Zoth Ommog releases likely coming to the seasoned listener’s mind by the time that cut comes to a close. That it can evoke early X-Marks and Leaether Strip so clearly even though there’s barely any modulation in it is reflective of the Blok 1 EP as a whole; there’s no attempt to reinvent the wheel or even look at it from a slightly askew angle here, you’re just getting fifteen minutes of classic, down the pipe early 90s industrial club fare, and pretty decent fare by that measure. The production and recording are pleasantly rough around the edges, but aren’t being used to hide any deficiencies, and the directness of the vocals (without a lyric sheet handy I can’t speak as to whether or not they refer to the current war) and programming is engaging throughout. By the time agreppo-flavoured closer “Vertikal” swaggers its flanged bassline to the finish line, you might not have heard anything you haven’t heard before, but I’m guessing you’ll be happy to have had a reminder of how enjoyable this style can be when it’s done with aggression and without compromise.
Blok 1 by Blokkontroll

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Catching the men for the last time.

Hot on the heels of a fantastic retirement concert from Front 242, the Senior Staff are discussing the ins and outs of legacy bands’ retirements. When’s the right time to pack it in, and who’s to say? How does a band’s aesthetic or style affect their longevity? We’re taking up these and other questions, as well as talking about this week’s Nine Inch Nails ticket sales. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Blood Rave
Exponential Decay
self-released

The music on Californian project Blood Rave’s sophomore release Exponential Decay inhabits a space between electro-darkwave and EBM, a meeting of sounds that has proven to be fertile in recent years. While there are certainly plenty of easy points of comparison for the dancefloor ready tunes on the album (Dancing Plague and Ultra Sunn come to mind), there are also some strong indications here that the project is making strides towards a more distinctive sound of their own.

“Can’t Resist” is a strong example of that development; the foundations are a workmanlike body music bassline and graven-vocals, but are accented with both slow-motion horror movie pads and some punchy sampled grunts, the former element upping the atmospherics, while the latter cuts through them to lay in some additional tension. “Abyss” takes that unease still further by introducing more layers of atonal sound and ramping up the layers of percussion, the central groove feeling more manic as it rolls on with more weight balanced precariously on top of it. “Through Your Eyes” reverses course by tossing in some more melodic sequences, adjacent to darker stripes of synthpop, albeit with more sickly and forlorn vocals that keep it from ever feeling light.

While those tracks certainly jump out on repeated listens (along with a few others like the double time anxiety of “Code in Grey” and the deconstructed ramp of “Death Awaits”), there’s an equal number that play the project’s sound right down the middle. Tracks like opener “Throwing Weight” never departs significantly from the stock monotone and monochrome approach the band had on its 2024 debut, while “Symphony Explored” flirts with a more goth-rock arrangement but never commits entirely to the excesses in delivery that put songs in the style over the top. There’s nothing bad about these songs per se, but some sameyness does set in, exacerbated by the record’s sound design; you’ll hear similar bass and lead patches pop up across multiple songs, not to mention a particular metallic percussion strike that keeps popping up to the point of distraction.

Still, the willingness to stretch out creatively that Blood Rave displays on Exponential Decay is intriguing, and the growth of the project’s ambitions as compared to their debut early in 2024 is measurable. As sophomore albums go, it does the job of expanding and refining in ways that will keep Blood Rave on dark music watchlists in the years to come.

Buy it.

Exponential Decay by Blood Rave

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Vanligt Folk
Dischorealism
iDEAL Recordings

We’ve been tracking Swedish trio Vanligt Folk for over a decade on this site now, and yet I still feel just as flummoxed by their work, just as incapable of expressing anything of substance about its nature, charms, and points of irritation today as I did back in 2013 when their self-titled debut EP came across our desk. That’s partly due to how off kilter that record’s deconstructed approach to post-punk was at the time, and of course like any properly disordered group of oddballs Vanligt Folk haven’t stayed put since, moving from the panicked body music of Jag Har Utvecklat Mig Till Både En Hund I En Katt to the deliberately abstract dub of Allt E’nte. Now, with Dischorealism they’ve alighted upon a glitchy, fragmented bricolage of house, EBM, and techno markers in order to, in their own words, examine themes of “sucking the life out of somebody, exploiting and over consuming trust in any form”. There’s certainly something there which could be connected with classic EBM and industrial, but when you read that the album started off as a concept record about milk, all bets are off, as they generally are with Vanlight Folk.

The core sounds Dischorealism have one foot in the preceding Allt E’nte; its predilection for deep and sustained bass crops up here and there throughout the record, alongside plenty of house, minimal techno, and EBM. But from soup to nuts the metallic distortion and woozy detuning that’s applied to just about every element and instrument on the record overpowers those sorts of genre distinctions and becomes its defining characteristic, lending the percussion a tin foil crinkle and the vocals a wind tunnel intensity. Even when the album title is taken literally and we get some classic Studio 54 disco on “SKABBE”, the listener’s likely to be more drawn in by the squalling high end distortion that’s been applied to the organ than to the funk on the rhythm section.

A sense of alienation not just from genre but from groove and immediacy is the record’s calling card, but even when things are a bit more traditionally memorable or hooky Vanligt Folk are likely engaging in some sort of situationist mindfuckery. “GLE” sounds as though its unparsable, pinched and distorted vocals might be lifting melodies from “Warszawa” and “I Feel Love” at various points. Far from drawing the listener in with familiar comfort, though, they’re prompted to wonder why those particular moments of art rock and disco soulfulness might be being connoted two thirds of the way through a resolutely confrontational record. In the same way that Art Of Noise type bricolage is dragged through the analogue muck of early 80s lo-fi synth experimentation on “Dischora”, those allusions raise more questions than they could ever answer about the band’s framing of disco as a notion, an era, a topos, an identity.

“It’s not just you or the language barrier,” a couple of Swedish friends have told us when the subject of Vanligt Folk is broached. “We don’t know what they’re up to, either.” That’s a small measure of comfort, but one that isn’t likely to resolve the conundrums the band pose at a sensory or phenomenological level. Something about the naive structures, the familiar yet disaffected sound design and distortion, something about Vanligt Folk themselves invites repeated listening even when their methods and intent remain wholly obscure.

Buy it.

DISCHOREALISM by VANLIGT FOLK

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Last Tracks post for January, and the year has been off to a roaring start in terms of new music in single and pre-release terms. You’ve seen a few names repeated in these weekly posts of late, and it’s safe to treat them as a harbinger of what’s to come for the website in the next little while; the forthcoming albums from Encephalon, Henric de la Cour, SARIN and a few others are right at the top of our most-anticipated lists, not to mention all the stuff we noted on the podcast a few weeks ago. And hey, as if that’s not enough, here’s some more new songs for you to enjoy as the month draws to a close.

grabyourface

Die Warzau, “I Am a Camera (Red Mix)”
Holy shit, Van Christie and Jim Marcus are back with a new Die Warzau single and it’s real good. Whether or not you were a fan of the band’s original run of records (seriously, their debut Disco Rigido is an underrated late eighties EBM/industrial classic), there’s lots to recommend the sound of “I Am a Camera” in it’s myriad remixed forms – slamming breaks, slinky synth grooves and some atmospheric vocal motifs (not to mention wailing sax!), all in service of a track that addresses the absolute fucking horror we’re all facing every god damn day in 2025. Hopefully not a one-off, we’d happily take a whole record from this mid-west institution in these troubled times.
I am a Camera by Die Warzau

grabyourface, “You Will Never Be Happy”
There’s always been a thread of raw vulnerability to Marie Lando’s work as grabyourface even when it’s being delivered in a sharp and club-savvy manner, but this new cut goes far beyond that track record. A striking first impression to give of forthcoming LP Sadgirl Mixtape, it’s a direct and unrelenting picture of depression, grief, and regret, with a simple piano arpeggio and some low-key black metal percussion underlining the plain and bleak message. Lando’s kept her hand in with a variety of collaborative works and singles over the last couple of years, but a full-length of material with this sort of honesty and strength is something we’re very much looking forward to.
You Will Never Be Happy by grabyourface

Serpentskin, “Swallow the Flame Down”
We suppose it was only a matter of time before Alison Lewis, aka Zanias, aka one of the most prolific and influential artists of the last decade in darkwave and body music followed the thread that has been suggested in some of her recent work; Delerium-style trance with ethereal vocals. Serpentskin is the outlet for that aspect of Lewis’ work and we’ll admit that the first song from debut EP (due March 10th) is hitting that spot for us, featuring all the proper stylistic trademarks like gated pads, big filtered builds and solid four on the floor drum programming with some nice weight to it.
Serpentskin EP 1 by Serpentskin, Zanias

STCLVR, “Axewound”
Self-decribed queer death EBM producer STCLVR’s become one of our favourite noise-based acts in North America over the last few years, and their half of the new Making Ends Meat split with Succulent and Sinister is an object lesson in why. Tracks like this which tie death industrial, black metal, EBM, and chiptune together are representative of STCLVR’s omnivorous and furious style, and manage to jam an incredible amount of bile and excitement into a compact and absolutely disgusting package.
Making Ends Meat by STCLVR

Hatari, “Breadcrumbs”
We’re not sure that we could have specified what we expected next from Icelandic techno/EBDSM act Hatari after their Eurovision dalliance with the meainstream, but a track with lines like “stuck in my brain like a dick pick” and “show feet please” isn’t too far off. As much as themes of power dynamics in online sex, consumption, and desire are right in Hatari’s wheelhouse, the delivery of this one’s a bit different, fiddling with the particular balance of elements taken from techno, EBM, and of the moment pop.
Breadcrumbs by Hatari

éstudy, “Watch Your Step”
You know, there was a point in the last couple years where we just got weary of techno-body stuff, mostly because of the glut of producers doing the same thing. The last year has had a few notable cases of new and established acts doing something altogether different with the idea though, and this new one from producer éstudy is a nice case in point. Taking the focus off pure easy-to-mix dancefloor bangers for manic synth sequences that have an air of acid to them, mixed with some clanging and clamorous percussion and some synth stabs to taste. Looking forward to hearing what else the Wie Ein Gott released EP has in store for us when it comes out in a few weeks.
Wave Of Resilience by éstudy

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This month’s commentary podcast has Bruce and Alex ripping through Cubanate’s unrelenting Cyberia, a combination of industrial guitars and contemporary electronic production that’s just as furious and engaging as it was in 1994. We’re talking Phil Barry’s guitar technique, the holy terror of Marc Heal’s voice, and how the record manages to deliver a constant stream of tight club tracks while never falling prey to the chaos it rides the edge of. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Wound Care
Existing Without You Hurts
Body Musick
Californian duo Wound Care, made up of Felicia Marie and Aldo Giovanni De La Cruz (Memory Clap Acid) make a punky, body-infused version of electro that hearkens back to both millennial electroclash and to more primal synthpunk sounds. The latter influence is apparent in Marie’s vocals, which lean into dramatic and often sardonic territory: on “Pretty Pretty” she asks “Do I Owe You A Pretty? Of course I do!”, the derision thick and heavy while rattling kicks and chattering synthlines go off around her. The minimalism of their compositions doesn’t take much away from their weight, with tracks like “Dead to Me” evolving from a short sequence of analogue beeps to a small symphony of EBM-bass, sampled voices repeating the song’s title and pitched shrieks that feel simultaneously arch and a little dangerous. It’s not all bombast though, with some songs dipping into funkier territory (like “Mala Conexion” with it’s swinging percussion programming and chirps of acid melodies) or languid soundscapes (closer “Moon Flower”, which has the air of a random krautrock record being played at half-speed down a drainpipe). It’s all quite effective and often unpredictable in ways that continue to engage through multiple listens, with even the straightest cut, the Sex Park collab “LuST”, taking a fairly standard darkwave arrangement and filling it with tumbling percussion and chaotic overlapping reverbed vocals, never settling into any groove that could be called comfortable.
Existing Without You Hurts Me by Wound Care

Zalvox
Zalmoxis Peak
self-released
Drawing parallels with the new project from frequent Haujobb collaborator Rinaldo Bite (aka Ribi) is easy enough – recent work from X Marks The Pedwalk and Black Nail Cabaret are handy points of reference – but the sound design pervading the first EP from Zalvox gives Zalmoxis Peak a uniquely foreboding unity, abetted by vocals from Dorain (who’s lent her voice to a barrage of electro/wave acts over the past couple of decades). The deep pads and the textured timbres of the production tics which weave through these five tracks will be familiar to those who’ve tracked Bite’s previous work and his high-def approach to sound design, but bit by bit the project’s appreciation for classic minimal wave comes across in its less is more arrangements and icy instrumentation. And it’s in the paradoxes of that style that Zalvox really excels: despite the gloom of the keys and choice of production, pieces like “Pasithea” and “Somnus” are given a reflective mood and resolute dignity by virtue of Dorain’s grounded yet plaintive voice.
zalmoxis peak by zalvox

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Lana Del Rabies. Photo by Laura Montrose, @fleshvoids.

The thorny issue of requests and how they do and don’t fit into goth-industrial club formats is the subject of this week’s podcast, with Alex and Bruce talking about the issues that come with ‘big tent’ club formats, how patrons expectations have shifted in the streaming era, and do their level best (but occasionally fail) to avoid turning into bitter middle-aged DJs griping about their lots. We’re also talking about the recent Lana Del Rabies set we caught here in Vancouver, and the details of the just announced Nine Inch Nails tour. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Obscure Formats
Cryptid
M-Tronic/Component Recordings

Now reactivated for more than a decade, the second act of Providence’s Component Records has lasted longer than its initial run at the turn of the millennium. Those old enough to remember Component releases by the likes of Neutronic, Dryft, and Proem will likely be struck by the similarities and differences between them and the label’s current aesthetic, with records by Hex Wolves and Solypsis still sitting at the Component’s original nexus between post-industrial and IDM, but reflecting changes in each of those worlds in the interim. That’s a writ which also applies to the latest from Component Records honcho Rob Galbraith, with that balance being maintained even in a very minimal delivery.

Far more stripped down and less noise-driven than Galbraith’s current work as half of Snowbeasts, Obscure Formats has made some minor adjustments since debuting in 2015 but has held to a dark and minimalist style. With Snowbeasts partner Elizabeth Virosa sometimes in tow, the project’s focused on beat-driven, percussion and bass forward tracks like the eight which make up Cryptid. While a minimalist take on techno and EBM sounds very familiar these days, there’s very little of Perc or Berghain styled TBM as we’ve come to know (and perhaps grow weary of) it here. Instead, the slowly modulating wails and pinging arpeggios which shift in and out of “Thunderbird”, and similar moves made on Cryptid, feel like classic moves and modes pulled from some of the earliest records Galbraith would have had a hand in producing or releasing. Sure, the odd bit of modern polish is applied here and there, but not so much as to obscure the grit and immediacy of such direct fare.

Despite its back to front focus on club tunes, what’s most impressive about Cryptid are the particular subtleties that come out of Galbraith’s minimalism. Rather than using a one size fits all approach, minor programming and mixing tics keep the relationships between seemingly similar elements in flux across the record. The rough, woozy bassline underpinning “Dover Demon” feels like classic techno while there’s a distinctly French electro flavour to the similarly foreboding bass of subsequent track “Basilisk”. These are minor differences to be sure, and aren’t quite enough to make Cryptid feel like a traditional LP in the pop or rock mold rather than a kit of club cuts. But the differences in sub-genre, and maybe more importantly the particular eras of club culture they each connote, should let discerning DJs find just the right tool for the job within that kit, and are a fitting reflection of just how long Galbraith and Component have had a hand in darker club releases.

Buy it.

Cryptid by Obscure Formats

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The Legendary Pink Dots
So Lonely in Heaven
Metropolis Records

It’s nigh impossible to chart the arc of The Legendary Pink Dots; with decades of official and semi-official albums, EPs, single, compilation and live releases, and a staggering number of line-up changes, the multi-national act led by Edward Ka-Spel defies both easy categorization and narratives. In many ways their psychedelic synth ethos arrived fully formed in the early eighties with their first batch of records, and has followed its own quixotic and winding path since, adding and subtracting instruments and contributors, revisiting old songs with new ideas, and staying unique to the band. That contradiction, their constancy in the face of change is part of the band’s core appeal: once you become a fan of LPD, there’s a deep comfort in hearing a new record from them regardless of whatever personal, spiritual or literal apocalypse it addresses. 

Which brings us to 2025’s So Lonely in Heaven, a record that embodies the mercurial sensibilities of the band while continuing the thread of their last full-length mainline release The Museum of Human Happiness in 2022. Where that album was very much a response to pandemic restrictions and the broad damage it inflicted on the global psyche, their latest addresses the now nearly cliche subject of who we are as people in the current online era. That intersection of identity, technology and society isn’t new to the Dots (they’ve been addressing it directly as far back as 1998’s Nemesis Online and probably earlier in various places), but the specifics are new. We live in a time where we can live a curated existence, presenting ourselves as we wish, and existing even past our own expiration as simulacra. As the title of the LP suggests, that ghostly life can be lonely and isolating, and exact costs which can be difficult to see clearly. 

This is of course the kind conceptual underpinning Edward Ka-Spel can make a meal of as a singer and lyricst, and he does so in his own inimitably bizarre fashion here. “Rejected the flesh/Now we’re floating in purgatory, that’s all that’s left” he croons on the opening title track, somehow infusing the statement with both whimsy and melancholia, accompanied by strings, post-rock guitars, washes of cloudy synths and a simple arrangement of synth percussion chirps, like birdsong as rendered in an 8 bit video game. Those kinds of observations might seem almost naive or facile at a glance, but there’s a certain surreal science fictional truth uncovered on them. “My liver keeps my best friend sober/since he crashed the car” he intones on “Pass the Accident”, a statement that would seem funny if it didn’t seem plausible that renting out our own life giving organs wasn’t some insurance company oligarch’s wet dream. While there are plenty of moments of hope and light here (“Dr. Bliss ’25” is at least musically somewhat uplifting with is bubbling synth arpeggios and piano) the overall mood is on the dour side; the record concludes with the jazz-noir of “Everything Under the Moon”, where Ka-Spel, ever the frustrated prophet, lets us know that “Exits are locked/there’s no space for sympathy”. It’s a warning too late to save us, although we probably wouldn’t have listened to it anyway. 

Musically, So Lonely in Heaven is the first major release for the band since the exit of founding member Phil Knight, aka The Silverman, although it’s hard to tell if the synthesist’s absence has impacted the sound of the band. As with their last suite of albums the focus is on textured guitar from now veteran guitarist Erik Drost and synthesized keys and atmospheres from Ka-Spel and relative newcomers Randall Frazier and Joep Hendrikx. There’s few instances of the band’s sometime forays into deep space ambience, with most of the record taking a more grounded approach, using the occasional bit of inorganic percussion or a tightly wound bit of sequencing to reinforce the technological themes at play. It’s an effective mode for the band to use, and yields a few standouts like the sad horn-adorned ballad “Sleight of Hand”, the folk-by-way of e-bow of “Wired High: Too Far to Fall” and the lush and luminous “How Many Fingers in the Fog”. Really though, it’s a contiguous album, more impactful when taken in as a complete experience. 

Assessing the quality of a new Legendary Pink Dots record is most likely a wasted effort; the band’s charms are far from universal to those not already inducted into the fandom, and those same aficionados (this reviewer included) are likely to enjoy basically anything the band does to one degree or another. Suffice to say that The Legendary Pink Dots persist as they have for more than four decades now, ever more themselves in ways that defy the abstraction and artifice that stand between musicians and their audience. The catharsis of So Lonely in Heaven is found not in its subject matter or musicianship, but in the fact that The Legendary Pink Dots persist. Sing while you may indeed. 

Buy it.

So Lonely In Heaven by Legendary Pink Dots

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We don’t dip our toes into live event promotion that often, especially these days, but we were happy to pitch in a little bit in helping our friends at The Invisible Orange in presenting the Vancouver stop on the Lana Del Rabies and God Is War tour that’s just wrapping up. We had a solid turnout (especially for a noise show on a weeknight), vibes were good, and the performance from the artist behind our favourite album of 2023 was fantastic. We’ll talk about it in a bit more detail on the podcast later this week, but it’s legitimately rewarding when something you had even a small hand in bringing to fruition comes off so well. On to this week’s tracks!

Oh Ye Gods!

Minuit Machine, “Cent Fois”
The speedy and decidedly bright EBM programming of the latest single from the reformulated Minuit Machine brought all manner of high-gloss Euro electro from a while back (think [:SITD:] or Timewave-era Grendel) but there’s no mistaking Amandine Stioui’s vocals for anyone else’s. Short almost to a fault, the contrast between the precision of the programming and the airy, almost whimsical tone of the vocals has us wanting more in this style, or maybe an extended club mix at least.
CENT FOIS by Minuit Machine

Analog 80, “The Ghost of Skinny Puppy”
Belgian producer Analog 80 pays tribute to Canada’s greatest musical export (suck it Bryan Adams) on this appropriately titled cut from the forthcoming LP The Ghost of Silicon. Not a straight up homage, it’s a song that speaks to the more atmospheric and percussion driven numbers of the band’s early catalogue – think “Stairs and Flowers” – while integrating it with Analog 80’s own new beat inspired style of body music. A fine bit of moody electro-industrial that recalls plenty of mid-90s scene cuts from the likes of Zoth Ommog, a flavour we never tire of. 
The Ghost Of Skinny Puppy by Analog 80

Henric da la Cour, “Hey You, Hell No”
It’s been 7 years since Sweden’s Henric de la Cour released an LP, and he’s not wasting time in the lead-up to the release of My Bones, Your Ashes at the end of the month; with first taste “Dead Hank” last week, we’ve now got two additional tracks to check out, the orchestral ballad “Interlude” and “Hey You, Hell No”, which is giving off some mid-90s Depeche Mode type vibes. The one-time Yvonne vocalist has been missed in the HQ during his absence, with his first record especially holding a special place in our hearts, thanks in no small part to de la Cour’s excellent lyrics and emotionally honest delivery. Expect a full review in just a few weeks once we get to hear the whole thing. 
My Bones, Your Ashes by Henric de la Cour

SARIN, “No Anesthetic”
Unlike many of the producers who jumped onto industrial techno, SARIN has stayed relevant to our interests by showing he’s a lot more than four on the floor club bangers. Take for example new cut “No Anesthetic”, which aside from it’s wormy acidic synthline doesn’t have much in common with most techno; instead it’s a low-tempo atmospheric cut, that makes the most of a spooky vocal sample and some clattering metallic percussion. Great stuff, and an excellent taster for this year’s as yet unnamed 12″ release.
No Anesthetic by SARIN

Ye Gods, “Kochari”
Antonio Maiovvi’s Ye Gods project made a massive impression on us with its 2022 LP Babalon Works. Linking considered but not wilfully obscurantist occult themes with Maiovvi’s equally considered and sculpted approach to beatmaking, it was wildly different from the giallo style of work through which we first came to know Maiovvi, and instead brought the softer sides of Coil and Ulver to mind. The electro-pastoral soundscape of this taster from forthcoming LP The Arcane & Paranormal Earth has us looking forward to finding out what new textures and concepts that record will bring; watch this space for a full review soon.
The Arcane & Paranormal Earth by Ye Gods

Sophrosyne, “Scorpionic”
Sophrosyne’s 2021 debut LP remains one of the most interesting releases related to industrial metal we’ve ever covered at ID:UD, taking the aesthetic underpinnings (if not the actual sound) of cybergrind into the future, linking gabber, noise, and extreme metal with irreverent zeal. The new Scorpionic EP carries on from that point, with tracks like As before, if you’re into Cattle Decapitation (the band, not the crime), old gabber records, and roguelikes, you’ll likely love this.
SCORPIONIC EP by Sophrosyne

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Freddy Ruppert
i dreamed we lost everything
Static Definitions
A far cry from his lo-fi synthpop work in Former Ghosts and the tortured noise of his early This Song Is A Mess But So Am I recordings, the recent releases from Freddy Ruppert have taken a haunting, halting approach to noise and sound collage, much more Sylvian or The Caretaker than power electronics. The Prague-based producer’s latest, i dreamed we lost everything, makes the most of a light touch to synthesis, sampling, and crackling atmosphere across a half hour of understated but varied listening. From the unease produced by the Soliloquy for Lilith-like hums of “all things left unsaid” to the pastoral arpeggios of the title track, Ruppert’s taken the time to think about how sound design feeds into composition and vice versa. There’s no one-size fits all approach to either though, with the oddly peaceful and dusty industrial ambience of of “shoeboxes” being worlds apart from the quavering way closer “memory leak (lost voices)” unfolds with cinematic grace. Legitimately affecting and surprisingly relistenable experimentation.
i dreamt we lost everything by Freddy Ruppert

Brood Faye
The Tank
self-released
It’s hard to draw a bead on California’s Brood Faye; the music on debut LP The Tank fits broadly into the current wave of electronics that draws from both darkwave and EBM, but with an alternately sardonic and riled-up attitude that feels pretty singular. It’s not hard to imagine hearing a cut like “Pinyon Prick” with its whispered vocals and speedy rhythm programming in a club setting, but its not a mode that the project sticks to for long, with follow-up “Me and Larry” transitioning into a punky bit of funky electro with yelled vocals that fill out the mix. That departure is nothing next to a full-on squelchy electro country and western number of “Farrah Fawcett”, which itself comes after the chillingly matter-of-fact monologue of ambient interstititial track “Muhannad Posts and Troy Voicemail”. Whether on the manic, spitfire rhymed vocals of “Gov Psy Op” or the comparatively straight mid-tempo swing of “Sweet Assassin”, Brood Faye keeps things lean, DIY and unpredictable, all qualities we could use more from the dark alt scene at large.
The Tank by Brood Faye

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Double Echo

The first classic, two albums formatted episode of the new year has us looking at the finely balanced ethereal darkwave of Double Echo, and the immediate and genre-hopping techno-EBM work of Alen Skanner. We’re also talking Terminus, the passing of Manufacture’s Brian Bothwell, and the prospect of a new NIN tour. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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INVA//ID
The Agony Index
self-released

The on-again, off-again path LA’s INVA//ID’s taken since starting up some seven years ago has both built a sense of intrigue around Christopher Rivera & co.’s hardcore inflected approach to classic industrial rock and metal and something of a sense of frustration. The band will drop a release with no warning and then vanish for months on end, and that’s not to mention the task of navigating the reworking, repositioning, and at times flat out deleting of previous releases. To their credit, new LP The Agony Index was announced more than a year ago and has been scaffolded with an archival release, plus a pair of standalone singles over 2024, including a cracking version of Wax Trax deep cut “Show Me Your Spine”, which was a regular presence in our DJ sets. Seeing release on New Year’s Day, The Agony Index is an unrelenting, everything and the kitchen sink release which, while at times unwieldy, underscores why so many in the North American industrial world have had INVA//ID’s name circled for several years.

If INVA//ID’s rep for hardcore-tinged industrial suggests either Youth Code or the one-off EP from supergroup Error to newcomers, they won’t be entirely shocked by the downtempo industrial dub and skittering rush of the pair of sub-two minute tracks which open the record, but there’s plenty more in store. Few acts today are as good at refreshing sounds most will associate with classic Wax Trax releases, and the way that “Torn” piles up a stack of grimy basslines and programming should be catnip to fans of 90s industrial rock in general. A tune like “Auto Erotic Transmission” finds a nice balance between those elements and hardcore, linking Rivera’s anthemic bile to a nodding, Psalm 69 era Ministry groove.

Spend enough time with The Agony Index and the more organic and original qualities of INVA//ID come through. “Empty” ranks among the best and most ambitious pieces INVA//ID’s yet produced; building its groove bit by bit out of soupy drones, there’s been enough bleepy and stuttering programming and well paced kicks added by the time its plainly delivered chorus hits that it stands out as the rare electro-industrial slowburn of a quality only a handful of current acts could craft. On the flip side, late album highlight “G.F.M.” points to a whole other strength: doling out pure and simple industrial thrash for its own sake, no muss, no fuss.

If The Agony Index has a failing it’s in its editing, or lack thereof. It’s not that a handful of the tunes which abutt highlights like the above tracks are decidedly weaker than them, it’s that in the context of a 65 minute, 17 track monster of a release like this it’s often difficult for the moods or subtler distinctions in those tracks to stand out. On the one hand, that’s good value for money and one can understand the band wanting to deliver something of real significance after a lengthy (by their standards) gestation period. On the other, it can somewhat occlude the tight and fierce immediacy which is one of the band’s calling cards. In any case, unwieldy or not, The Agony Index offers all manner of payoff for those who’ve been holding out for its release, and a solid introduction for those just catching wind of INVA//ID.

Buy it.

The Agony Index by INVA//ID

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Soft Vein
Through Blinds
Artoffact Records

The 2023 debut album from Soft Vein was an exercise in miserablism; it had solid songwriting and thoughtful production, but the universally bleak and depressive tone of the affair is what sticks out when recalling Justin Chamberlain’s darkwave debut. New record Through Blinds tweaks the project’s approach towards a more melancholic direction, no less downcast, but avoiding the pitfall of having mood and atmosphere completely overshadow its charms.

Like the debut, Through Blinds weds bleak monochrome textures and mournful vocals to solid rhythm programming and swatches of synth and guitar, with things kept cool and tempered even at higher tempos. Where it largely differs is in how effectively it those elements are kept in balance, with some of the brighter sounds shining a light through its shadowy temperament. Tracks like “Gray Space” let synth bass and drum programming act as a proper foundation, never succumbing to the swells of discordant pads, with brighter leads accenting and adding melodic dimension to the proceedings. Similarly, the arp that runs through “Oblivion” has a warmth to it that acts as a pulsing heartbeat, allowing Chamberlain to underplay his vocals, the song kept minimal in arrangement but intriguingly emotional.

Those traces of light certainly don’t cause the album to approach anything like happiness however; make no mistake this is still a gloomy affair. Even in its most propulsive moments like “Wasting Days” and “Black Bag” keep minor key sadness in focus, anchoring their gated snares and thrumming bass with longing and wistful vocals and cloudy pads. The tension between how tempo-forward the programming is and how generally dejected Chamberlain sounds is a pocket of sorts – when the album dips into more ambiguous rhythmic territory as on closer “Dreaming”, the effect is more striking simply for how infrequently Soft Vein succumb entirely to despair.

With those glimpses of hope that come out through the heartsick fog shining ever brighter for avoiding being snuffed out, Through Blinds becomes almost hopeful in temperament. It’s overcast and often doleful, but allows for the suggestion that better days might still be on the horizon. It could be the fraught moment in time, but that’s a comforting thing for a darkwave record to being in these early days of 2025.

Buy it.

THROUGH BLINDS by SOFT VEIN

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Well hey everyone, we’re already halfway through January this week, which might not seem like much, but given that this is usually a slower time of year for releases, it means we’re rapidly burning through our annual catchup time as we digest that list lingering bits of 2024. Things have started strong in Our Thing with a few choice releases (many of which have been or will be written about here shortly) and album announcements, and as always we’re keen to see what direction the year takes us, and what acts familiar and new will grab our attention. As always if there’s something we’re sleeping on, let us know in the comments below. Tracks ahoy!

Laibach, “I Want to Know What Love Is”
Slovenian industrial OGs Laibach have been a lot of things over the years, but their most memorable schtick has always been the recontextualization of pop and rock songs in their own, gravelly voiced style. In recent years, and thanks in no small part to now longtime collaborators Silence, they’ve gotten very good at making their chosen covers lush and lovely, as is the case with this version of Foreigner’s dad-rock (Dadbach if you will) staple “I Want to Know What Love Is”. One of the Senior Staff’s partners noted some Leonard Cohen-isms in the arrangement and performance, and damn if they weren’t spot on. Lighters up y’all.
I Want To Know What Love Is by Laibach

Kite feat. Nina Persson, “Heartless Places”
Tear-jerking Swedish synthpop faves Kite have been on a productive kick lately; the release of singles EP VII last year on Dais Records and a US tour would have been plenty for low-output-high-quality duo, but all of a sudden we’ve got a brand new single featuring Cardigans vocalist Nina Persson. With the last batch of Kite originals having been more on the low-key heartbreaking vibe, it’s nice to hear something a bit more propulsive if no less evocative. Hopefully it’s not long before their next missive, we like having ’em around.
Heartless Places (feat. Nina Persson) by Kite

Ash Code, “Living For The Sound”
As we head into 2025 with no sign of the ongoing omnipresence of darkwave ebbing, it’s nice to have a strong entry like this from now-veterans Ash Code. They’ve had a great balance of dark guitars and synths on lock from day one, and have been levelling up their songwriting while maintaining fantastic atmospheres, and this cut is no exception. Whether or not this cut which exemplifies those qualities will literally point to the trio’s first LP in a decade or not, we’re happy to be reminded of the band’s enduring power.
Living For The Sound by Ash Code

Obscure Formats, “Basilisk”
The reactivation of Component Records is welcome to those of us who remember the label’s pioneering work in codifying technoid as an intersection of IDM and post-industrial music some twenty years back. But in its new incarnation the label hasn’t stayed pat, and releases like this one from Snowbeasts side project Obscure Formats shows the payoff of the veteran curatorial instincts Rob Galbraith brings to the label and Galbraith’s own productions like this one. Part classic EBM, part current techno, part millennial French electro, there’s a lot of resonance woven into this dead simple, acidic banger.
Cryptid by Obscure Formats

Korine, “Anhedonia”
Just last week on the podcast we were discussing the forthcoming Korine album A Flame in the Dark and wondering what direction it would take the Philadelphia indie-post-punk-synthpop band. If “Anhedonia” is anything to go by, turns out it’s the same bright, hooky pop they’ve been doing for a while, but with some added electronics and lots of shimmery, dreamy production for flavour. Korine have written some of the most damnably catchy songs of the last couple years between their two previous LPs, we’d put money on this new one continuing that trends.
A Flame In The Dark by Korine

Sleep Forever, “Shine A Light”
Speaking of bright pop, we know from previous releases that Markus Weber likes to use his Sleep Forever solo project as an opportunity to dig into bouncy and colourful synthpop which would be out of step with his usual business as part of austere and at times quite harsh darkwave outfit Veil Of Light, and the first taster from the second Sleep Forever full-length only underscores that. Coming across like an early 90s OMD single if Andy and Paul had spent a bit more time in Ibiza rather than Merseyside, “Shine A Light” bodes well for Alter Ego.
Alter Ego by Sleep Forever

The post Tracks: January 13th, 2025 appeared first on I Die: You Die.

Osccurate
Computer Decay
Synthicide
The three original tracks and two remixes offered by Colombian artist Osccurate on recent EP Computer Decay are varied in style and approach, reflecting the wide variety of body music approaches the project has tried on thus far. Most notably unique in this regard is opener “The Witch and the Moon”, which finds room for spidery Flamenco-adjacent guitar melodies between it’s thudding mid-tempo EBM rhythm and swooping filter sweeps, the incongruity between organic and electronic sounds creating a tangible feeling of tension. While the title track (produced in collaboration with Bogotá-based artist Galope Messier) includes only a few fluorishes of six string atmosphere, the sound itself is notable for taking an italo-disco riff and bluting it into a far more sinister form, still bright, but foreboding in the context of the rolling bassline and processed vocals. “Ñalazos” is the most straightforward and driving track on offer, recalling sort of millennial post-electronica sounds of Juno Reactor and Empirion, with a tasty touch of squelchy acid for flavour. Any of those distinct approaches could yield a new pathway for Osccurate, although if the story of the project thus far is any indication, the next release may be just as varied in wholly new ways.
Computer Decay by Osccurate

Give My Remains To Broadway
This Party Sucksself-released
Toronto ne’er-do-wells Give My Remains To Broadway are back on their speedy (in both senses of the word) darkwave kick with new EP This Party Sucks, but as the title points to, their focus has shifted somewhat from the phantasmagoria of early releases like Beyond the Gates of Xouztoth towards more quotidian stressors: bad coke, worse relationships, regret. Croaky vocals point to the band having recorded these six tunes immediately in the aftermath of the titular shindig (“It’s not a pre-game, it’s a pre-World Cup”), but as with their extant material, surprisingly lush atmospheres and solid darkwave harmonies are packed into every corner of tight compositions like “I Know You Could”. At the band’s most approachable, the punkier side of their sound pushes through gloomy excess, with weary tales of being strung out and run down (“Crash Out”) sitting halfway between Terminal Gods and Crocodiles. They’ve shown themselves to be more than capable of juggling the signifiers of recent darkwave, but here they’re beginning to point to a more general approach to dark rock which could find them tapping into new audiences.
This Party Sucks by Give My Remains to Broadway

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