‘Inspired By Me’ is the second single to be taken from ‘In This Light’, the forthcoming fifth album by Swedish dark-pop act Principe Valiente. Marking a bold evolution in the group’s decade-plus journey, ten meticulously crafted new songs lay bare the signature ethereal soundscapes and dreamy ambient allure that initially propelled them onto the alternative scene with the release of their self-titled 2011 debut album.
’In This Light’ is a symphony of mellotrons, samplers and analog synths harmonising with the celestial resonance of Rickenbacker 12-string and Gretsch guitars played by Jimmy Ottosson, further enriched by melodic piano and distinctively distorted driving bass all enveloped in the enigmatic voice of singer Fernando Honorato.
‘Inspired By Me’ follows the new album’s introductory single, ‘Something New’, which signalled a shift in direction for the current duo line-up with its dream-pop approach.
“This song describes a state of emergency. When the concentration and focus that an urgent situation demands, completely overruns and obliterates the concept of time. An hour becomes a few seconds, or the other way around – the usual routes of communication fall flat to the ground and become unnecessary. Somehow there is this telepathic understanding of what has to be done. The image is a large field of withered grass standing in roaring flames, with a handful of people desperately trying to put the fire out” – Erika Angell
Her debut album The Obsession With Her Voice is out 8th March 2024.
As my sweep-up of singles released a few weeks back but still in the later stages of 2023 continues, we come to John X Belmonte’s ‘Under the Stars of Andromeda’. The New Yorker has been slipping out slabs of dark alternative pop since 2020, and has maintained a fairly steady output these last three years. Citing David Bowie, Depeche Mode and Kate Bush as influences, he promises ‘Haunting atmospheres, beautiful melodies, driving rhythms, and rich sonorous vocals [which] draw the listener into his musical dream world.’
With perhaps the exception of Depeche Mode from Black Celebration and later, these touchstones don’t really convey just how gothy Belmonte’s work is. ‘Under the Stars of Andromeda’ is a dark, stark electro cut that pulsates and has all the ingredients of the kind of electrogoth which started coming through in the mid 90s. There are chilly layers of synth which drift and hang like a freezing fog to conjure murky atmosphere, and as the track evolves, it feels that we’ve left earth and are being carried through clouds of dust particles, floating free of any gravitational pull, and a thumping techno beat cuts in and takes things stratospheric.
It’s the vocal which really defines the sound, and the genre leanings, too: Belmonte’s baritone croon is theatrical, taking obvious cues from Andrew Eldritch and Peter Murphy, and it’s subject to heavy processing and compression, meaning that while it sits tightly within, rather than above the music, in terms of not only mix but tonal range, it feels detached, dehumanised. It’s effective, in that it sounds menacing, and sends a shiver down your spine, as you wonder just what he has in mind when he says ‘we’ll find a better place.’
The synth sounds may be trancey and expansive, but clocking in at four minutes, ‘Under the Stars of Andromeda’ is neat and compact, structurally, and the production is faultless.
Chicago-based electronic pop artist Brittany Bindrim has released her debut single, ‘Obelisk’, today on Metropolis Records, accompanied by a beautiful yet dystopian video directed by Simona Noreik. Known for her catchy melodies and powerhouse vocal performances in the post-industrial rock band I:Scintilla, Bindrim now ventures into foreign sonic terrain as a solo artist with this hard-hitting, edgy song packed with punishing beats and harsh synthesisers.
This new chapter of Bindrim’s career takes her into experimental territory along with producer Matt McJunkins (A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, Eagles of Death Metal, Poppy). While the lyric for ‘Obelisk’ explores themes of tribalism, political divides, collective trauma and a surrendering to peace, Bindrim states that its music “is an interplay between the words and harder-edged, percussive musical elements. The heavier drums and the main driving bass synth line were written first, which then inspired a pleading vocal melody. I had previously written a lyrical seedling that was close to what ended up in the chorus lines, which I thought fit perfectly and helped spawn the rest of the lyric in conjunction with the harder, marching energy of the music.”
‘Obelisk’ is included on an album entitled ‘Velella Velella’ that is set for release on 8th March 2024. “The songwriting process for every song was a little different, but I didn’t try to force ideas or overthink things,” she continues. “Each song developed very naturally and instinctively."
From moody, ethereal ballads to gritty dance bangers, ‘Velella Velella’ showcases both the versatility and evolution of Bindrim’s work. Channelling transformation, sociopolitical climates and explorations to understand the darker side of human nature, her vulnerable and unapologetic lyrics showcase themes of self-discovery, empathy, apathy, disillusionment and growth.
Darkplace is a mysterious new Swedish dark dream pop/post-punk group who created a conceptual debut album inspired by the bleak landscape of the Stockholm suburbs that birthed them.
Centred around an alternative reality – or just the grim present and future? – and entitled About The End Of The World, the album is being unveiled gradually over the coming months via a series of imaginative visuals based on animated digital paintings for each of its eleven tracks.
Having recently released ‘Arken över Hesselby’ (The Ark Over Hesselby), the video for which presented the outskirts of a city haunted by an unknown aerial presence, the clip for brand new single ’Fearmonger’ takes us into the heart of that city, presenting an apocalyptic scenario as ominous sirens wail and a lone soldier flees the prying ‘eye in the sky’ of an airship.
The Swedish national alarm system is still tested on a quarterly basis by the army. A familiar sound to all Swedes, the sound of the siren has the nickname ‘Hesa Fredrik’. Darkplace state: “After trying to improve Hesa Fredrik, the government learned that the new horns scared the shit out of people.”
Although rooted in late 80s/early 90s indie styles, Darkplace incorporate a variety of other genres into their sound. However, for the members of this highly secretive group, it is not just about the music. They perceive themselves as more an art project that happens to be exploring and commenting on the state of the world through their chosen mediums of music and video.
Most of the short instrumental pieces on the forthcoming album were written with specific storyboards in mind, with the band revealing that “we started creating the art before we had the music for both singles to date, so the tracks were written as soundtracks to the animation.”
The art itself is a multi-layered process that involves photography, sculpting, oil painting, digital editing and animation. Using apps like Nomad Sculpt to create it before exporting scene specific angles and imported into Procreate to be painted, they add: “we use oil paintbrushes and paint over the photo. It is layers upon layers and it gets messy. Exporting gets even messier since we want depth in the scenes and need to export them in layered depths. A few scenes in this project have been animated frame by frame and it has taken almost two years to complete.”
Magic Wands is a US dark pop outfit originally formed in Nashville by guitarists & vocalists Chris and Dexy Valentine, but now based in Los Angeles where they have been joined by drummer Pablo Amador. Their name stems from the gift of a wand from Chris to Dexy when they first started making music together while still living on opposite sides of the country.
The group have released three albums over the last decade on which they have refined a shimmering and cosmic dream-pop sound that incorporates elements of shoegaze, post-punk and goth. Textured guitars, droning synths and delicate, ethereal vocals combine to create an otherworldly atmosphere.
Armed with songs that have often been praised on both sides of the Atlantic for their euphoric quality, especially in live performance, the trio themselves have remained dedicated to creating music that is both imaginative and emotionally engaging. They have developed a loyal fanbase drawn to their ability to create a sense of mysticism and wonder through their music.
Magic Wands have shared stages with the likes of Radiohead, Slowdive, Jesus & Mary Chain, The Horrors, Deerhunter, The Kills and The Black Keys. They also played their own headlining tours of the UK and mainland Europe in 2017-18.
Having released a single in late March entitled ‘Joy’, the group have now followed it with ‘Time’. Complemented with a pair of remixes apiece, both are also included on Switch, a brand new album set for release on 12th May by Metropolis Records.
Today I did something that was pretty alien to me: I took a break. Having dropped the car at the garage for a service, I walked some four miles back into town, and with another mile and half to get me back home, I stopped in at a pub and sat on the first floor with a pint, just looking out of the window watching people drift by on the street below. There were some interesting tunes being aired through the hidden speakers, from early New Order to The Jesus and Mary Chain. At some point, Dum Dum Girls’ cover of ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ came on and not for the first time in recent months, began to reflect on The Smiths, since I recently offloaded my entire vinyl collection of their works. It wasn’t just that I need the money – and the £800 I raised was certainly useful – but this was an act of purging. That Morrissey is a monumental cunt had certainly been bugging me for some time, but then I have many records by people who have long been known to be monumental cunts and I haven’t felt the compulsion to jettison their junk. No, his cuntdom was just the tipper after I came to the conclusion that these records no longer spoke to me and hadn’t been played much since I left my teens, and the death of our monarch, which led to the obvious song gaining ubiquity on my social media feeds simply left me weary.
But on hearing this cover, I found myself thinking ‘but this is a great song’. And so, arriving home to find Spiritual Front’s cover of ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ in my inbox felt somewhat serendipitous.
Taken from their upcoming album of Smiths covers, The Queen is Not Dead, it’s a very straight cover that not only pays homage but great attention to detail in terms of the arrangement, mostly only adding swathes of strings near the end. And it, too, is – still – a great song. Although not all of The Smiths’ songs were great – the albums included a a lot of pap, like ‘Frankly, Mr Shankly’ – but it’s hard to fault their singles and the craft. Perhaps, then, it does come back to the issue being Morrissey, his cuntiness and his adenoidal tones which my wife always hated so – meaning that, ultimately, at least for me, it becomes a question of context, and hearing covers of the songs is preferable and less problematic than hearing the originals.
As the bio which accompanies the release details, ‘With The Smiths carved so deeply into the Romans’ collective heart that they had played full shows featuring the English rockers’ classic hymns in recent years, it was only a short step to record a full tribute album when taking a break from touring. Spiritual Front went about their task with the explicit aim to pay a respectful homage yet at the same time to stay away from cloning. Across the album’s fifteen tracks, which many consider sacred, the Italians stayed true to the original recordings, while pulling those songs closer to the sonic world of Spiritual Front for example by adding strings and horn parts.’
This, of course, is the ultimate pull of The Smiths: anyone who has endured those awkward teenage years as an outsider, who’s been sixteen, clumsy, and shy, will feel that connection to these songs. And for a band whose recent output, dubbed ‘nihilistic suicide pop’ has drawn comparisons with Nick Cave, Swans, and Scott Walker, it still makes sense that The Smiths would be there in the background.
But to hear the weathered, tattooed Simone Salvatori enunciating ‘ah-ho, la-la, ladadada’ – well, it does seem somehow incongruous. For all that, he pulls it off well, and while I’m on the fence with the video, it’s a solid cover that suggests the album will be worth hearing.
BEBORN BETON reveal ‘Last Chance’, a cool new clip taken from their forthcoming full-length Darkness Falls Again. The performance video of the groovy synth pop hit ‘Last Chance’.
BEBORN BETON comment:”Troubled boy meets emotionally depraved gynoid beneath silvery moon which then, for no adequately explored reason, fails to explode”, vocalist Stefan Netschio writes on behalf of the trio. “Last Chance!”
Hailing from Austin, Texas, electronic act Gleaming are deeply rooted in 80s synth pop, and while there are hints of gothic grooves and whatnot, the more obvious touchstone is mid- to late-80s Depeche Mode. But if opener ‘Rat Me Out’ is a clear access point with a strong hook, the first single, ‘Run Faster’ is starker, harder, more industrial, a thudding kick drum welded to a relentless bassline that nags away at your brain while calling to mind DAF. It’s a tense affair, and with lines like “the phone, the ego, the friends, the future, the body I’m in – all telling me to run”, we get an insight into the EP’s themes. The band describe the EP as ‘an ode to one’s former self and depression, habits, partners, family, friends, etc.,’ adding ‘It’s an attempt to bring closure to a darker past and to celebrate life in a more positive and meaningful sense.’
Closure, catharsis, celebration: it feels like all three to an extent. ‘Ashes’ is propelled by a busy beat and throbbing bass, and ‘The Voyager’ follows its path but ventures more toward Depeche Mode c84 crossed with Pretty Hate Machine era Nine Inch Nails – it’s dark, it’s synthy, but also accessible and feels light and perhaps less menacing than intended, in the way that early Ministry wanted to be harder than it was. The glitchy autotuned vocals don’t help: the never help anything, unless perhaps you’re Cher. It’s not a bad tune – there isn’t a bad tune on the EP – but the execution, if done differently, may have had more impact.
The seven-and-a quarter-minute title track is a low-tempo, slow-burning synth-led brooder, heavy with reflection and emotion and a sense of closure.
Showcasing a certain range within the stylistic confined of their genre of choice, Gleaming are an interesting proposition, with a sound that’s familiar and illusory, but not specifically derivative – and that’s an achievement.
Canadian dark-pop act The Birthday Massacre have just issued a video for ‘Precious Hearts’, a song included on their current album ‘Fascination’. The clip was cut to footage filmed at a show in their home city of Toronto in October 2022 during a North American tour to promote the album, shortly before they arrived in the UK to play a long-awaited (and sold out) ten date UK tour (which we dug here at AA).
Watch the video here:
AA
BM will be on tour in the US again from late April, with nine headlining shows bookending eleven further guest slots with Lacuna Coil. Their full itinerary can be seen below.
Aural Aggravation 