EVA X returns on September 18th with ‘Dance In Shadows’, the preview single for her upcoming album, TURBOPINK (out Nov 6). One part synthpop, one part metal, one part millennial J-pop, and one part 80s nostalgia, ‘Dance In Shadows’ is a primal scream for lost friends and empty spaces on the dancefloor, wrapped in a bright sonic blanket.
‘Dance In Shadows’ is a song born out of grief. EVA X writer, Gaby Gustafson completed the track after a co-worker & friend died from an aggressive form of cancer. She states, “I had written a super sad song originally, but I knew she’d hate that . It was really important to her to find joy wherever she could. So I ended up reworking the track into – Dance In Shadows- our happy little song about death.”
For the B-side of ‘Dance In Shadows’, Stoneburner brings his own styling to the track with a breakbeat remix that captures EVA’s dancefloor edge.
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EVA X started as a bedroom producer. She started releasing her tracks in 2019 and quickly built a cult following in the goth/industrial scene with her fusion of synthwave, industrial, power pop, and even metal elements. She released her debut album, I Dream Of A Reality on Distortion Productions in 2022, landing on several “Best of 2022” lists. She’s been a rising power on the US festival scene, including New Jersey’s Dark Force Fest, Seattle’s Mechanismus Festival, and Calgary’s Terminus. After a couple of years of heavy touring, Eva is back with her second album TURBOPINK and a full band along for the ride.
Stockholm post-punk trio Then Comes Silence presents ‘Remaker Redeemer’, the second single from their forthcoming Requiem Ballroom album, due in November via Metropolis Records. The music video, filmed by Damon Zurawski of Future Legends Films, captures the song perfectly, descending into the space between death and rebirth, where the final journey into darkness becomes a passage toward transformation, renewal and the possibility of another world.
Then Comes Silence has also just launched their European tour, which runs throughout September and October, bringing them to venues and like-minded music lovers in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Czech Republic, before returning home to Sweden for the final show on this leg.
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A tightly focused trio since 2022, Then Comes Silence was formed in 2012 by vocalist-bassist Alex Svenson in 2012. Drummer Jonas Fransson and guitarist Hugo Zombie, round out the band in its most direct, powerful and uncompromising form. One of the leading names on today’s goth, post-punk and darkwave scene, they are driven by a fascination with horror, the occult and the raw intensity of underground music, having forged a distinctive sound and a devoted international following.
The Requiem Ballroom album itself is divided into two parts: ‘Ballroom’ was mixed by Jon Bordon (Nicole Sabouné, Melody Club, The Exploding Boy) and the ‘Requiem’ half was mixed byTom van Heesch (Rammstein, Apocalyptica, Backyard Babies). Svante Forsbäck / Chartmakers (Rammstein, Amaranthe, Ville Valo, The Rasmus, Apocalyptica) assumed mastering duties. ”Remaker Redeemer introduces the second part of the album ‘Requiem Ballroom’. It’s about new life, and being reborn with the old sins washed away. A kind of cleansing, a fresh start, and the feeling of beginning again. The choice of instruments and sound on this track is a way to explore something different this time,” says Alex Svenson.
“Death is generally regarded, across many cultures, as the final blackout where nothing follows. Yet in another sense, death can also serve as a metaphor for change and transformation. To take the next step, change is inevitable.”
Then Comes Silence earlier released ‘Judgement Day’, a driving anthem that embraces failure, reckless choices and the thrill of living without regrets, embracing a final celebration before the inevitable reckoning. The vivid behind-the-scenes documentary by Marzipan Moonlight offers a glimpse into the video’s creation and the thriving spirit of Stockholm’s goth community.
LIVE DATES SEP. 11 - Glain, Belgium @ Deux Ours SEP. 12 – Rotterdam-Albrandswaard, Netherlands @ Baroeg Open Air 2026 SEP. 13 - Rennes, France @ Brewklyn SEP. 14 - Paris, France @ Le Chinois SEP. 15 - Rezé, France @ Cold Crash SEP. 16 - Lyon, France @ Rock N’Eat SEP. 17 - Marseille, France @ Le Molotov SEP. 18 - Torino, Italy @ Ziggy Club SEP. 19 - Castelfranco Veneto, Italy @ Sale Improve SEP. 20 - Hlavní Město Praha, Czechia @ Subzero OCT. 24 - Stockholm, Sweden @ Kollektivet Livet
Norwegian cult act ULVER return again to the track ‘Hollywood Babylon’ from their previous album Liminal Animals (2024) for the best of all reasons: a stunning music video that has been long in the making. Following a fascinating remix by Gazelle Twin aka Elizabeth Bernholz that offered a brooding reinterpretation, the Norwegians now add this beautiful clip to the growing corpus around the original track.
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ULVER comment: “Working with our wonderfully mad old friend Christian Mona from the Bogus Blimp days never disappoints”, mastermind Kristoffer Rygg writes on behalf of Ulver. “He started to create this video before we released our last album (sorry about that) and he has finally delivered a splendidly grotesque little gem from within his Automated Bathroom. ‘Hollywood Babylon’ has never looked better! It is a distorted mirror of our times. Please feel free to stare into it a little too long.”
The Norwegian visual artist collective AKFF! adds: “2025 marked 20 years since Ulver made the animated music video ‘It Is Not Sound’ in cooperation with us”, Christian Mona states. “It has been a hypnotic journey through the Sea of Sorrows all the way to the Pinnacle of Truth. Thinking back on what a great experience it was to visualise and expand on Ulver’s universe, we started wondering why AKFF! hadn’t made more videos with Ulver. As it turns out, Ulver had been thinking along the same lines! And so the making of ‘Hollywood Babylon’ began.”
VOX UMBRA returns with their two song maxi-single, ‘Afterglow’ / ‘The Train’, which pairs the duo’s cinematic atmosphere and emotionally focused songwriting. Across these companion tracks, the release explores movement, uncertainty, devotion, distance, and the fragile clarity that can emerge when old certainties fall away. Darkly elegant and deeply human, ‘Afterglow’ / ‘The Train’ balances widescreen tension with intimate emotional stakes.
‘Afterglow’ / ‘The Train’ is a cohesive two-song statement about how people carry each other through uncertainty, whether side by side or from afar. One song moves through pressure and fracture. One song lingers in grace and release. Together, they create a resonant emotional arc. For fans of thoughtful, atmospheric songwriting and listeners drawn to shadowed textures, lyrical depth and songs that stay with them after the final note, ‘Afterglow’ / ‘The Train’ offers two compelling new entries in the VOX UMBRA catalog.
Watch the video for ‘Afterglow’ here:
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‘Afterglow’: A sweeping and urgent meditation on disillusionment, loyalty and perseverance in a world where direction grows uncertain. ‘Afterglow’ transforms failing signals, collapsing promises and gathering pressure into a powerful personal narrative about choosing to keep moving. With lines such as “I loved you before the damage, I’ll love you through the break,” the song finds tenderness inside turbulence.
‘The Train’: Reflective, restrained and quietly devastating, ‘The Train’ explores pride, grief, growth and the ache of letting someone move beyond your reach while still loving them fully. Centered by the lyric “Maybe this time I have done enough”, the track offers emotional generosity without sentimentality.
Much as the whole ‘sounds like’ and ‘for fans of’ thing has become a standard shortcut which is, all too often, reductive and plays into the algorithmic feeding of artists by streaming platforms, it can be useful, at least when the references are accurate. Sometimes, a misrepresentative comparison can come to define an act’s entire career. I can’t be the only one who investigated Interpol because of the endless comparisons to Joy Division – and while I quickly grew to love Interpol, they’re as much like Joy Division as Suede are The Smiths. Sometimes these disparities are the result of poor journalism or sloppy PR, others they’re the consequence of a band’s own lack of self-awareness, confusing the input from their influences with what their music actually sounds like. Nevertheless, when a band is pitches as being ‘for fans of Faith or Disintegration-era Cure, and Closer-era Joy Division’, the connotations of glacial synth-orientated bleakness suggest they’re worth investigating.
And so I arrive at F.I.V.E. Fear Increases Violent Emotions (released in January), by Italian dark / new wave band Christine Plays Viola via the album’s fourth single, ‘Desolate Moments’ – in an example of an old-school promo cycle, where a single or two in advance would hype the album, and a trailing single or two would sustain momentum and (hopefully) grab some people who’d missed the initial build-up and release. This one’s had a long run-up, with ‘Jackie’s Curse’ surfacing way back in 2024.
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‘Desolate Moments’ is a spacious slow-builder, and fulfils the promise of some cold synths, the brooding vocals paired with some rolling percussion and throbbing bass. In many respects, it’s a quintessential slice of modern goth, in the vein of Corpus Delicti, with some hints of Depeche Mode swirling around in the mix. That’s not all that’s swirling around: the video, which is designed to replicate their live performance, finds the band members partially obscured by billowing smoke, clearly taking cues from The Sisters of Mercy’s seminal stage shows.
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It turns out that ‘Desolate Moments’ is representative of the album, too, certainly in terms of quality (one thing about old-school promo before the advent of the Internet is that you’d often rush to buy an album based on the lead single, only to find that it was the only decent track, and that the rest of the album was turd… this was particularly prevalent in the ‘80s, but I’d venture that Depeche Mode’s Ultra would have been better whittled down to an EP of the singles). And it’s an album that radiates darkness and classic goth vibes and sounds.
Opener ‘Sprout of Disharmony’ is nothing short of an instant classic in the vein of Rosetta Stone and Susperia, with spindly guitar work, sturdy on-the-beat bass grooves and metronomic percussion, and with a seven-minute run time, it certainly qualifies as epic. ‘My Redemption’, released as a single six months ago goes darker, more overtly electro, and brings in elements of industrial while still reflecting the goth sound of the late 90s and the turn of the millennium, and packing some strong hooks, too.
There’s a keen sense of theatre about Christine Plays Viola’s sound: they’re certainly not afraid to go big and play up the drama with finesse. ‘Confession’ lands with a sense of urgency, and is again driven by bold tribal beats reminiscent of vintage acts like Danse Society and Skeletal Family, while ‘There’s No Going Back’ swerves into early Nine Inch Nails territory, only more overtly gothy. While operating around elements taken from some well-established blueprints, Christine Plays Viola manage to offer no shortage of variety on F.I.V.E., the jittery ‘Black Noise’ changing tack halfway through, and the seven-and-three-quarter-minute ‘The Crypt of Mystery’ explores altogether more expansive territory which teeters on the progressive.
As an album, F.I.V.E. feels like a big work: it may only contain ten songs, but a fair few run well over the five minute mark, and the variety is indicative of the scale of the band’s ambition to articulate and explore the theme of ‘fear not as weakness, but as a force that shapes who we become’ in multi-faceted detail. And they succeed in their objective, with some great songs, too.
Now in their thirty-fifth year, MESH have always unapologetic in the way their music reflects and incorporates their influences, spanning Yazoo, Depeche Mode, Giorgio Moroder, Massive Attack, and Depeche Mode. It’s the latter that seems to cast the longest shadow over their latest offering – an album brimming with uptempo anthems propelled by driving beats, urgent synth bass grooves and busy sweeping lead lines.
In this context, it’s often all too easy to get swept along on the tide of electric energy and skim over the lyrical content, which is considerably darker, as the title reflects. As they summarise, ‘This is the age of post-factual lies…’ and as they grapple with difficult times, there’s ‘a dark undertone that occasionally seeps into their new songs’. There’s a feeling that anyone who isn’t affected by the current state of the world is either ignorant or in denial, and for those operating within the arts or any creative fields, I would question how it’s possible to create without these external conditions filtering into the work. And how can anything not be political right now? Time was – not so long ago – when a lack of acceptance or belief in official versions of events was the domain of fringe conspiracy theory. Now governments blatantly lie to our faces: Israel are adamant that every death in Gaza was a member of Hamas, or otherwise a ‘human shield’, the USA insist that they’ve won the war with Iran and have decimated their nuclear capabilities which were likely to destroy the entire Western world tomorrow, and the UK government insists it’s in no way involved or even complicit in any of this. Meanwhile, there’s nothing to see in the Epstein files. Right.
For all that, there’s a lot of emphasis on relationships and the like. Timeless issues, which cut to the core of the human condition, but not necessarily hitting the heart of the zeitgeist. But it’s impossible to be contemporary and timeless, I guess.
On The Truth Doesn’t Matter, MESH are straight out of the traps with a brace of back-to-back anthems, before arriving at the slower ‘I Lost a Friend Today’, which conveys a deep, painful sincerity – but at the same time it emotes with the dramatic flourishes that only a band with gothier leanings could pull off. But then the buoyant disco beat and skittering, soaring synths of ‘Trying to Save You’ somewhat undermine the sentiment. The same is true of ‘I Bleed Through You’, on which some heavy words are diminished by a poppy disco backing.
‘Kill Us With Silence’ follows the same template, but the dark shades are overtones rather than undercurrents: the gothier leanings work well here, as do the more experimental shades of the sample-soaked ‘1031030’, which has a read 80s vintage feel to it.
MESH are definitely at their best when they go dark, and when they go experimental. Single cut ‘This World’ straddles the different aspects of the album, and as such, is arguably the single song which most accurately represents what The Truth Doesn’t Matter. The same is true of ‘Exile’: it’s a belting dark pop tune, but it’s a bit too Erasure to really reach those emotional depths.
There’s no lack of quality or consistency here in terms of songwriting or production, so the only issue is its stylistic focus, or lack of, and just how poppy it is for an album which aims to venture into dark domains. But sixteen tracks is a lot, especially when the majority are four or even five minutes long. The Truth Doesn’t Matter, but focus does, and while it’s not a bad album, trimming it down and concentrating on the theme of its title would have likely made for a more focused album, and one with greater impact.
Patience is supposedly a virtue… but then apparently, there’s no time like the present. And you’re supposed to strike while the iron’s hot. Clearly, Trump and his negotiators and so-called ‘Minister of War’ figured there was no time like the present even while negotiations with Iran were progressing nicely, with Iran offering substantial concessions around their nuclear programme.
Loaf of Beard’s follow-up to2023’s Dog had been scheduled for a couple of months’ time, but from nowhere, it’s been brought forward and landed yesterday. It’s not even a Friday, let alone a Bandcamp Friday! Still, after LoB material got an airing on a jaunt of the UK late last year, this might be considered an example of striking while the iron’s still a bit warm, and moreover, given the way things are going, there really is no time like the present inasmuch as we can’t guarantee there will even be a future. There is an urgency to making art right now, and putting it out there FAST isn’t so much about keeping it relevant – although that is a factor, since events are happening at such pace it’s nigh on impossible to keep up – but about processing all of this shit and conveying the intense and myriad mixed emotions these insane times engender.
As they write in the accompanying notes, ‘In these constantly changing and worrying times it is somewhat of a relief that certain artists go out of their way to document humanity’s descent into fucking stupidity and greed’.
Loaf of Beard – a duo consisting of Chisel and Rabies Beefburger tackle these serious matters with an element of humour, Chisel ranting and chanting in a distinctly north of England sprechgesang over uptempo lo-fi drum machines and scratchy electronica. There’s something uplifting about both the musical and lyrical simplicity. On ‘All Of This Lot Can Get Fucked’, Chisel reels off a list of politicians and other public figures, with a chanting refrain of ‘get fucked’. It’s simple but effective, and in a just world, they’d be playing to hundreds of people all singing the words back at them in a display of unity. But that’s not the world we live in, as they point out on ‘Shit Mic, No Fans’:
Some might say I’m the laziest rapper
I have to admit, that there’s none crapper
All the fucker MCs come along and diss me
I spit out rhymes, they just dismiss me
The irony is that this isn’t a million miles away from Sleaford Mods in many respects., and I suspect they’re aware of this fact. When you boil it down, it’s sweary sociopolitical rants with repetitive hooks delivered over minimal electronic backing. But while there is humour here, at times, Privilege and Other Poisons is unafraid to venture into dark territory, and this is nowhere more apparent than on ‘B.A.E’, where they call out the manufacturer of arms and ‘informational security’, whose share price has absolutely skyrocketed in recent years, since Russia invaded Ukraine and war has essentially spread around the globe, with the lugubrious refrain of ‘B.A.E and their profits of death’. And this is how the world works under capitalism. A small – very small – minority coin it in while everyone else’s lives crumble and tens of thousands of people – innocent civilians – are slaughtered because some cunts in suits who wield power beyond imagination are petulant pieces of shit who want global domination like in a stupid movie and think it’s a game.
Elsewhere, ‘Claptrap Fåntratt’ sounds like The Fall circa Light User Syndrome (which is severely underrated in the scheme of their oeuvre). ‘Freeze Peach’ goes full-throttle raging electro/punk thrashabout, with Chisel foaming at the mouth with the chorus of ‘take your fucking flags down dickhead’ before going all-out Beavis and Butthead. ‘I Feel Like a Twat’ serves up a slice of cheesy jazz-infused disco funk, and knowing its awfulness is conscious and intentional only raises the level of awkwardness. This is Loaf of Beard all over. They exist to make you feel uncomfortable – and they succeed. And I for one respect that.
Semi-ambient pastoral contemplations about wildlife and sightings of elk make for some welcome respite: it’s not healthy to be raging all the time, and however fucked the planet may be, nature is resilient. It’s us who need to become extinct.
MESH demonstrate their remarkable proficiency far beyond producing massive electronica hits by delivering a wide-angled mid-tempo advance single that amalgamates melancholia with relentless urgency in the shape of the music video ‘This World’. This is the final advance track before the iconic alternative electronic duo’s new album will be released on March 27, 2026.
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MESH comment: “I lingered in front of a piano and my mind wandered into cinematic film score territory and continued into how these soundtracks or epic pieces of music set an emotional landscape for the film”, Richard explains. “This was my train of thought when I wrote what was to become ‘This World’. Then Mark added the underpinning modular lines which gave this uneasy dynamic.”
“This is a really beautiful song in my opinion”, Mark opines. “It came together by a huge group effort with Rich’s solid and emotional instrumentation, lyrics that just seemed to come together, and Olaf’s inspired production and arrangement changes. It turned out to be one of my favourites on this album.”
Finnish band, THE FAIR ATTEMPTS has just unveiled their latest single – the gothic rock-inspired, ‘Ghost Within’.
‘Ghost Within’ examines the internal monsters: negative self-talk, doubts, pride before collapse, and the subtle ways the human mind feeds on its own fear. The song portrays self-awareness as a mirror maze, where reflection offers no clear exit.
“This is a theme I’ve touched on in other songs because it’s something I struggle with. Ghosts may be coming to get you,” says frontman Timo Haakana, “but there’s one already inside you.”
Written during a year of deep introspection and creative pursuit, ‘Ghost Within’ depicts the emotional core off the forthcoming full-length album, Null Guide. It’s not about defeating your inner ghosts, but learning to live with them.
Where were you when…? That’s the question that is so often asked when it comes to moments in history. Whether it’s the assassination of John Lennon or JFK, or 9/11 (I was at work on the third floor of an office in Glasgow, and as the news broke, it didn’t seem real. At some point, people may ask ‘where were you when America invaded Venezuela, abducted their president and declared that they would be running the country and taking their oil?’
Me, I was starting preparation for a pasta bake ahead of a visit from my elderly mother whose mental capacity is in severe mental decline, and my stepfather, whose mental capacity has been questionable for the thirty years I’ve known him, stressing over how much grief I would get over being vegetarian, yet again, or similar.
I found myself faced with the dilemma – did I actually want to write about music in the face of this? Was it even appropriate? The answer was that I needed to immerse myself in music, to take myself out this hellish unreality by retreating to someplace safe. Someplace safe, for me, is my office, with some candles, a large vodka, and the challenge of articulating the impact of new music in words.
Back in 1992, The Wedding Present undertook the task of releasing a single a month, on 7”, and each one hit the UK top 40, and scored the band a record number of chart singles in a year – beating Elvis Presley. A couple of years back, I covered the progress of Argonaut as they released a single a month to assemble their next album. Again, it was a great example of how deadlines and confines can push creative output, although I was rather glad I didn’t have to get busses into town after school and rush round the various record shops to source a copy of said monthly singles.
And now UK industrial/electronic artist j:dead are on a trip of twelve singles in twelve months, perversely starting in December, making this the second in the series.
For a moment, I shall step aside and share from the accompanying bio for expanded context:
‘Where opening single “Pressure” confronted the crushing weight of expectation, “Disgusting” turns the lens inward, addressing the uncomfortable realization of having slipped into complacency. Through candid, visceral lyrics, the track embodies the feeling of awakening to one’s own laziness, comfort, and decline; expressed symbolically through the erosion of physical appearance. It’s a raw, self-critical reflection delivered with the intensity that defines j:dead’s work.’
‘Disgusting’ is a slice of high-energy electronica with a gothy / industrial edge which hits hard. Pumping beats, processed vocals and buoyant dance derivative synths dominate this single release which has alternative clubnight rager written all over it. And it’s the perfect escape.
