Dark wave – Page 6 – 7th Level Music

Angel Olsen releases a cover of “Gloria” from upcoming EP of 1980’s music cover songs.

Today, Angel Olsen announces the Aisles EP, comprised of head turning covers of ‘80s classics and the debut release on her new Jagjaguwar imprintsomethingscosmic, out August 20th (digitally) and September 24th (physically). The EP features ambitious takes on five covers, including today’s “Gloria” (Laura Branigan), plus “Eyes Without A Face” (Billy Idol), “Safety Dance”(Men Without Hats), “If You Leave” (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) and “Forever Young” (Alphaville). Olsen comments, “I know it’s not really in my history to do something unintentional or just for the hell of it, but my connection to these songs is pretty straightforward, I just wanted to have a little fun and be a little more spontaneous, and I think I needed to remember that I could!”

The Aisles EP was recorded in the winter of 2020 at Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios with co-producer and engineer Adam McDaniel. Olsen had known McDaniel for years, and became better acquainted while trying to conquer the audio of live-stream at-home performances last spring. McDaniel and his wife Emily opened their home to Olsen throughout the previous summer and made it a safe space to create and let go before beginning tracking. “I told Adam I had an idea to record some covers and bring some of the band into the mix, or add other players. I needed to laugh and have fun and be a little less serious about the recording process in general,” says Olsen. “I thought about completely changing some of the songs and turning them inside out. I’d come over to find Adam had set up five or so synthesizers, and we’d get lost on a part for a while messing with some obscure pedal I knew nothing about. We’d spend a good amount of time going through sounds before finding one or two, sometimes we’d get real weird and decide to just go with it. ”

Olsen’s take on “Gloria,” released today, crawls with reverberating synth and an arresting cello arrangement. As the song nears its end, her vocals ricochet into a dramatic vibrato. “I’d heard ‘Gloria’ for the first time at a family Christmas gathering and was amazed at all the aunts who got up to dance. I imagined them all dancing and laughing in slow motion, and that’s when I got the idea to slow the entire song down and try it out in this way.”

Angel Olsen’s Aisles EP follows the Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories Box Set, released this past spring, and her new single with Sharon Van Etten, “Like I Used To.” It is the premiere release for somethingscosmic. “I’m very excited to be introducing somethingscosmic, an imprint that will serve as the home for all my covers, collaborations, and one off singles,” says Olsen. “In this time away from touring I have been inspired to create more, and somethingscosmic will give the me flexibility to release when and how I want to with the help from my longtime partners at Jagjaguwar. The hope is that it will become a place for all of my creative endeavors, music and otherwise.”
Listen to Angel Olsen’s “Gloria”

Pre-order Aisles EP

Aisles EP Tracklist
1. Gloria
2. Eyes Without A Face
3. Safety Dance
4. If You Leave
5. Forever Young

Angel Olsen Tour Dates
Sat. Sept. 11 – Chicago, IL @ Pitchfork Music Festival
Fri. Oct. 29 – Sun. Oct. 31 – San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands Music Festival

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Jorja Chalmers releases “Bring Me Down” ahead of new album due May 28th.

Margate-based, Australian multi-instrumentalist Jorja Chalmers will release her new album ‘Midnight Train‘ on May 28th via Italians Do It Better. The first single from the record “Bring Me Down” is streaming online now.

Speaking about the first single “Bring Me Down”, Jorja said “It’s about the fragility of the perfect housewife.It’s basically about a woman that’s trying to be everything, and is cracking psychologically. It’s got a very haunting melody. There’s something there that’s a little bit beautiful and disturbing about it.”

The accompanying video is a piece of Lynchian performance art, an unsettling one-shot clip that shows a person on the edge. It’s all theatre however, Jorja Chalmers relishes in inhabiting a persona, one that may be entirely divorced from her own experiences. “There can be a healthy separation from using your creativity to make something that is almost like a duplicate of yourself, that you don’t necessarily associate with. If you make something dark, then it’s not necessarily your personality. It can be the opposite sometimes.”

Watch & listen to “Bring Me Down” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S3sZoiG20g

Jorja Chalmers enjoys a quiet life. The Australian born mother of two lives in Margate, the Kent coastal town that is turning into something of a cultural hub. Yet there’s another, shadow version of Jorja Chalmers, one that resides in a liminal realm; a saxophonist and composer, a brooding, vampiric, twilight soul who yearns for some sense of aesthetic transformation.

New album ‘Midnight Train’ comes close to severing the two. Constructed during the long winter lockdown, Jorja would put her kids to bed before closing the door in the spare room, building lengthy, undulating passages of cinematic terror, patching together European art-pop glamour with outsider electronics. It’s composed, intense, and challenging – but it’s also utterly exhilarating.

It’s not been a straight-forward path. Burned out following years of classical studies in her native Sydney, Jorja travelled half-way round the world looking for an escape. Settling for some ad hoc office jobs in London, she started kicking around in bands, playing saxophone for a friend’s new wave project. Someone from Bryan Ferry’s team spotted her at some flea-bit bar, and was infatuated – soon Jorja started touring the world with Roxy Music.

Jorja’s 2019 debut album ‘Human Again’ was sketched in hotel rooms across Europe and North America, ideas punched out on down-time between shows. This time round, however, things are a bit more defined. “A lot of those songs were one take jams, it was improvised. This is more refined,” Jorja insists. “It’s a natural progression, this second album. It feels more mature in that way.”

Mixed by Dean Hurley, David Lynch’s music engineer, ‘Midnight Train’ is a treasure trove of ideas. Indeed, it could well be the album Jorja had waited her entire life to make – aspects of minimalism sparked by a teenager who spent countless hours memorising Michael Nyman’s seminal film score for The Piano, set against cinematic electronics and swathes of huge, enveloping, classical dynamics.

“I want it to sound immersive, like it’s wrapping you in a blanket,” she says. Indeed, she cites Rachmaninoff’s epic work The Rock as a key touchstone on the new record. “It’s something that my parents used to blast out of their stereo when I was a kid. I heard it a million times. It’s strange to be hearing a song that is so dramatic when you’re that young. It’s a beautiful piece. It’s one of those things that leaves an imprint on you.”

At times, ‘Midnight Train’ gets very dark indeed. ‘Rabbit In The Headlights’ is a squirming piece of jet-black avant-pop, while ‘Boadicea’ is draped in the blood of the ancient British warrior queen. ‘The Wolves Of The Orangery’ was sculpted after a Roxy Music show in the Palace of Versailles, and it’s haunted by the oppression meted out to the servants, and the bloody revenge exhibited on the French regal classes. There’s light in those murky depths, however; take her brooding version of The Doors’ classic ‘Riders On The Storm’ – a blood-thirsty slice of dystopian electronics, it doubles as a salute to her father, who built himself colossal speakers to both entertain his daughter and terrify his neighbours.

A finessed, contoured vision of Jorja Chalmers’ undaunted creativity, ‘Midnight Train’ bristles with ideas. Breathy saxophone undulates on ‘Nightingale’, her homage to Yellow Magic Orchestra founder Haroumi Hosono, while mournful closer ‘Underwater Blood’ echoes the intensity of Goblin’s work on the Suspiria score, or even John Carpenter’s cinematic endeavours. “I grew up watching lots of movies. I was obsessed with the Terminator soundtrack. I remember hearing that for the first time, and just knowing my tastes were going to be changed forever.”

‘Midnight Train’ feels concise, sharpened, ready to pounce. Cannibalising her influences, Jorja Chalmers has been able to pursue her creative appetites to their most extreme. Yet even at its most challenging, her bold new album revels in the sheer joy of creation. “Making this album was really freeing,” she explains. “I loved writing this album. I always write in the same way, but I think that lockdown provided me with lesser distractions. Writing is such a personal thing for me – being in your little cave, and creating. That’s the beautiful moment for me.”

A solitary creation, a lockdown triumph, ‘Midnight Train’ is the moment Jorja Chalmers truly achieves transcendence.

Midnight Train track list:
1. Bring Me Down
2. I’ll Be Waiting
3. Rabbit In The Headlights
4. Boadicea
5. Love Me Tonight
6. Nightingale
7. Riders On The Storm
8. Rhapsody
9. The Poet
10. The Wolves Of The Orangery
11. On Such A Clear Day
12. Midnight Train
13. Underwater Blood

Links:
Jorja Chalmers Instagram
Italians Do It Better store
Italians Do It Better Instagram
Italians Do It Better Twitter

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Review: October and the Eyes – Dogs and Gods

New Zealand’s October and the Eyes is a one-woman show. Perhaps the Eyes mentioned in her “band’s” name are the eyes of the world, or the Creator, or Big Brother. I don’t know the answer, but that’s okay. Sometimes the mystery is more intriguing than the answer itself, and “intriguing” is a good way to describe October’s Dogs and Gods EP. She calls her music “collage rock,” meaning she blends influences ranging from krautrock to house music to dub and garage punk. It all works, and the fact that all this sound is produced by one person is damn impressive.

Opening track “Playing God,” for instance starts off with industrial beats and guitars and soon blows your speakers onto their backs with psychedelic reverb-laden vocals reminiscent of Siouxsie Sioux emerging from a dark cave. “All My Love,” a tale of love and lust, is a gothic shoegaze masterpiece with sexy robot beats and synth-bloops doing a striptease alongside October’s vocals that sound like she’s singing through an FM radio dug up in a post-apocalyptic junkyard that can somehow access broadcasts from the early 1980s.

“Wander Girl” continues the goth-synth vibe with Dum Dum Girls and, I’ll say it, Cyndi Lauper-like vocal stylings. “I’ve only been waiting my whole life for you,” October sings on the peppy “You Deserve It” – a song that seems aimed at herself and her potential lover at the same time. “The Unraveling” is a flat-out shoegaze rocker designed to rattle your home walls or the roof of your car. The closing track, “Dark Dog,” is dreamy synth-wave that has a slightly creepy feel to it as October sings about a man best left alone.

This is one of the coolest-sounding (and sexiest) EPs I’ve heard all year. I hope we hear more soon.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Affect Display – Animal Drift Animal

Animal Drift Animal, the first album from Affect Display (AKA Damien Smith), is a lush sonic soundscape that sounds not unlike what you’d hear while dreaming of electric sheep.

Lead single “Until the Light Hits the Door” starts off sounding like something you might hear in the score of a modern psychological thriller but then transforms into slightly goth, slightly ambient trance music. “Flight or Fury” pulses like an alien menace on a haunted moon, blending Ennio Morricone and Vangelis influences.

The subtle sonics of”Transference” are suitable for meditation, your morning tea, making out, or taxiing down the runway on your flight to wherever you’re going to quarantine for two weeks. “Dauen” is full of bright synths, strange samples, and beats that sound like they were recorded in an empty Olympic pool (and I mean that in the best way).

“Flock” builds around a drone that could be some kind of machine Smith recorded in the field for ambient sound. Stuttering drum beats stumble around a swelling guitar line and Smith’s robot overlord vocals. “Red Blue In-Between” starts off with psychedelic guitar (!) and then becomes something like an instrumental Sisters of Mercy song with its fierce drumming and slithering synths. The closing track, “Floating Pictures,” has touches of synthwave, city pop, and ambience for a nice finish.

It’s a lovely record and one that is suitable for so many different situations that it’s impossible to list them all. Let’s hope Smith keeps up these sonic explorations and unearths more treasures for us.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Pirates Blend Press.]

Review: Martin Thulin – Into the Light

Martin Thulin is part of the psychedelic / shoegaze band Exploded View, and his new solo album, Into the Light, is full of psychedelic and dreamy ruminations on death, life, impermanence, and presence.

Opening track “Not Afraid to Die” blends Velvet Underground guitars with 1980s synth wave keys to send you floating into whatever version of the afterlife you prefer – or at least out of your current troubled reality. “Here in My Room” adds some disco horns to create a cool lounge-rock track. The bass on “Amazonian Smoke” is post-punk, the synths are goth, and the drums are industrial. It all works. “Thin White Duchess” is, of course, a play on David Bowie‘s “Thin White Duke,” and Bowie touches are sprinkled throughout the track. I like the way Thulin filters his vocals to the low end when you think they’re going to come in at full volume and then slowly brings them back into the front.

The thick keys on “New Dawn Coming” start off side two of the record, and soft electro-beats slide into the room like a sultry lover. The smoky bass of “Day Out Day In” and Thulin’s echoing vocals bring Peter Murphy to mind, and I love the simple, clear piano compliments throughout it. They’re almost like drops of ice water falling onto you during a humid day.

The guitars on “Upstairs Room” sound like they have strings of taffy as Thulin sings about listening to the radio on a quiet, lonely night – even though he’s with his lover (who is mourning their mother’s death) in the same place. Church organ-like keys usher in “Silence You Forever” while Thulin’s vocals take on a raspy spoken word quality. “Your anger makes you so blind, you can’t see you’re being fooled. And when they finally take it over, you’ll have no voice at all,” he sings / chants. Good heavens, those are some prescient lyrics in 2020, aren’t they? The closer, “Amalgam,” sounds like a film noir score and brings to mind images of rain-coated alleys, shady business deals, femme fatales, and suitcases of money that needs laundered as soon as possible.

It’s a haunting record, a cool record, a smooth record, and an uplifting record. That’s a rare combination in any year.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Mr. Thulin!]

SUUNS’ release first single,”Pray,” from upcoming EP.

Montreal-based band SUUNS, comprised of Ben Shemie, Joe Yarmush, and Liam O’Neill, announce their new FICTION EP out October 30th via Joyful Noise Recordings, and share the lead single. “PRAY” was recorded during a hot Dallas summer in 2015 with John Congleton, originally for the band’s 2016 album Hold/Still. “It didn’t make the cut, probably because we loved it so much and thought we had an even better version of it in us,” says O’Neill. “We subsequently tried to record multiple versions of this song, none of which captured the unhinged energy of this live-off-the-floor performance. Discovering this lost jam and its power felt like a reminder to keep in the moment and to trust ourselves – you just have to keep moving forward.”

SUUNS are future-oriented. New sounds, new techniques, new ways of thinking; above all, new environments are the lifeblood of the band. And true to form, here on the FICTION EP, SUUNS are exploring fresh processes as a result of their current surroundings and global circumstances.

On the FICTION EP, new sounds and sonic directions are fashioned out of old. A year-long period of limited resources and contact inspired the band to reflect on the various environments in which they’ve created music over the years: to comb through their previous sounds and creative approaches, and fuse them together with new ideas, ultimately producing a sort of future/past alchemy. The FICTION EP is as much a project of curation as it is one of creation: sifting, re-imagining, and re-framing, sometimes completely disassembling and then building from the ground up. Each song is a live-off-the-floor recording that was then taken into isolation and re-worked.

As much as the FICTION EP is a project born of introspection and reflection, it’s equally one for which SUUNS sought inspiration from outside. Longtime friend of the band Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart), bringing relentless claps and buzuks, leads SUUNS through “BREATHE,” while Amber Webber (Lightning Dust) sings a mournful siren song on the penultimate track, “DEATH.” Finally, the ghost of Frank Zappa lends the band his fervent societal diagnosis, as relevant today as it ever was, on “TROUBLE EVERY DAY.”

Zappa’s darkly prophetic message, repurposed from 1966 to meet our moment, is an apt referent. These dualities, confluences of past and future, of introspection and influence, are what defines the FICTION EP. Produced from old remnants, it is entirely new; done in relative isolation, and is also something of a live record. The songs have been meticulously reworked, and yet the entire collection feels deployed with hardly any reflection, done in one breath. It’s the sound of SUUNS regrouping, and then poised, and then driving towards the future.

The FICTION EP is the first preview of more new music to come in 2021.
Stream “PRAY”:
https://youtu.be/pY56vaNYCVE

Pre-order FICTION EP:
http://joyfulnoi.se/FICTION

FICTION EP Tracklist:
1. LOOK
2. BREATHE (feat. Jerusalem In My Heart)
3. PRAY
4. FICTION
5. DEATH (feat. Amber Webber)
6. TROUBLE EVERY DAY

Keep your mind open.

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Rewind Review: Blanck Mass – Dumb Flesh (2015)

I had heard Blanck Mass (AKA Benjamin John Power) before with his work in Fuck Buttons, but had unknowingly heard songs from Dumb Flesh five years ago not knowing who had created them. So, hearing this album in its entirety for the first time was a real treat because it reunited me with songs I didn’t realize were my introduction to his solo work – which I have come to enjoy through multiple albums like World Eater and Animated Violence Mild.

Opener “Loam” is a weird backwards vocal track that lets you know you’re in for something out of the ordinary. No Blanck Mass album is necessarily “normal.” They’re all soundscapes that range from strange and sometimes creepy dreams (like “Loam,” which almost seems to be the sound of a possibly haunted lava lamp) to industrial dance tracks to ambient psychedelia.

“Dead Format” is the first Blanck Mass song I ever heard, and I was elated to be reunited with it on this album. I actually first heard it when I saw Blanck Mass perform at the much-missed Levitation Chicago in 2016. The thumping electronic beats and futuristic bounty hunter synths are a wicked combination that get you moving and absolutely kill live.

The title of “No Lite” is a bit misleading because it’s full of shimmering synths that fade in and out like sunlight breaking through rolling storm clouds as wickedly subtle beats pound underneath them. “Atrophies” mixes synth swirls with karate chop-like processed beats. “Cruel Sports” would be a perfect theme for some sort of cyborg octagonal cage fight. The bass hits hard, the beats sound like metal clashing with metal, and the synths gleam like stark overhead lights.

“Double Cross” is a great synth-wave dance track that’s dark-wave at the edges with break-beat subtleties. It belongs in the next video game you’re designing or playing. “Lung” pops and chirps like some sort of alien machine. It becomes somewhat hypnotizing after a short while.

The album ends with “Detritus,” which is a wild eight minutes and thirteen seconds of what at first sounds like some kind of excavation machinery running with almost no oil in the gears. The synths slowly build, like a creature rising from a junkyard to see the sun for the first time in a century.

It’s a powerful record, and just one of many such records Blanck Mass has put out there. Brace for impact before you hear it.

Keep your mind open.

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Neon Coven “Blame It on the Drugs” with new single.

Neon Coven, the darkwave, alternative rock band from Los Angeles, CA, featuring Jacob Bunton (Mick Mars, Adler, Lynam) and Ace Von Johnson (LA Guns, Faster Pussycat) has released its brand new single “Blame It On The Drugs” today via New Ocean Media. The song is the first single from the band’s upcoming debut full-length album Future Postponed. The lyric video is available on the band’s official YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1hhGIA50jE

Neon Coven is comprised of Anthony Montemarano (vocals), Jacob Bunton (Keyboards/guitar/bass), Ace Von Johnson (guitar), and Kyle Cunningham (drums). The band’s debut full-length album Future Postponed will be released October 30th. Produced by Jacob Bunton, the album features 11 tracks ranging from songs about survival and balance to emotionally charged anthems of empowerment. The songs live in the space between challenging the need for certainty and, ultimately, learning to accept uncertainty. “Future Postponed is set to inspire, intrigue and terrify all at once,” states guitarist Ace Von Johnson. “The material within runs a musical gamut, in which we as a band proudly exercise our ability to take bold strides in diversity. From dance-pop to goth rock, each song will take you twisting down a new road. I’ve worked on a lot of albums in my career, and thus far, this is the one I’m most proud of.”

FUTURE POSTPONED track listing: 01. Blame It On The Drugs 02. Every Part Of Me 03. A World Without You 04. I’m The New Hit 05. Manic 06. Purgatory 07. Kiss Of Death 08. Spirits In The Hall (feat. Ramsey) 09. You’re Never Getting Out Alive 10. Dead To Me 11. The Other Side Of Nowhere

From Los Angeles, CA, Neon Coven abandoned much of the ethos of the tradition of heavy rock to create an intellectual and theoretical sound, linked to an emphasis on anthemic, synth-heavy dance-music. The band came together when Von Johnson, Bunton, Montemarano and Cunningham formed the band as a side project on the suggestion of a mutual friend. “We were all on the Monsters Of Rock Cruise,” explains Bunton. “Our mutual friend April Lee said, ‘you guys should start a band.’ Ace and I had been friends for years, and we both met Anthony on the cruise. After we got back to LA, we started writing songs whenever our schedules would align.” The band released their first EP Risen in 2017 containing the songs “Bleeding Love” and “No One Knows You’re Dead,” both appearing in the horror movie Hesperia. The band followed the EP with a cover of Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again” in 2018. In 2019, the band released its second EP, The Haunting.

For more information: Facebook: www.facebook.com/neoncoven

Sound Cloud: www.soundcloud.com/neoncoven

Instagram: www.instagram.com/neoncoven

YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC1tGFRXHUJGkQqeo2q-_oXA

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycnmlpk5

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Gerard at New Ocean Media.]

Review: Automatic – Signal

I stumbled upon Los Angeles trio Automatic while listening to a radio station from somewhere in southwestern France. I was immediately hooked by their goth / no wave sound and had to find more. Luckily, their new album Signal was already available. I knew after one listen that I had to own it.

Halle Saxon‘s fretless, fuzzy bass opens the album on “Too Much Money,” and Izzy Giuadini‘s synths add a buzzy air of menace throughout it while Lola Dompé‘s drums are as precise as an auto assembly line. “Calling It” was the track I heard on French radio that made me sit up and think, “Who is this?” Dompé’s drums take center stage on the track and the echoed vocals are cold and sexy at the same time. “Suicide in Texas” is a goth-wave / David Lynch movie dream track. Automatic have cited Mr. Lynch and Dario Argento as major influences, so that already makes them great in my book.

“I Love You, Fine” is one of the best song titles I’ve heard all year, and the lyrics might be the best ones about female empowerment in a relationship since The Waitresses‘ “I Know What Boys Like.” “Highway” is a danceable industrial gem suitable for your next late night drive to an after-party. Saxon’s bass groove on the title track is undeniable.

“I see you turn into humanoid,” they sing on “Humanoid,” which I can’t help but think is influenced by Gary Numan‘s work. Giaudini’s synths and Dompé’s percussion on it sound like some of Numan’s work with Tubeway Army – which is never a bad thing. “Damage” is another killer goth-wave track as Automatic sing about walking away from a relationship that they know isn’t going to end well.

“Electrocution” has Dompé and Saxon in perfect synch on an upbeat track about what can be a downbeat subject – emptiness (“The sound of laughter, and then it’s over. There’s nothing after.”). “Oh no! We’re goin’ nowhere!” they sing on “Champagne,” which I think is a song about superficiality. The closer, “Strange Conversations,” is like something out of a goth prom night with its romantic bass line, slightly bright synths, and almost-slow dance drumming. Lyrics like “I thought I told you, I can’t stand anyone at all.” and “I’ve lost my patience. All you do is let me down.” also help boost the goth feel of the track.

The album mixes goth, synth wave, and no wave so well it’s difficult to tell where one influence begins and another ends, but who cares? Automatic blend everything so well that Signal becomes a lovely, hypnotic record that will surely be among my top releases of 2020.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts VI: Locusts

The second of two free instrumental albums offered by Nine Inch Nails in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ghosts VI: Locusts is darker than its predecessor – Ghosts V: Together. The track titles alone don’t bring to mind hopeful images like the last album. Many of the tunes on Ghosts VI: Locusts could easily fit on a horror film score.

“The Cursed Clock” is just such an example – bleak piano and creepy timing. “Around Every Corner” brings in a lonely trumpet and sounds not unlike passing buses to remind you of a film noir. “The Worriment Waltz” is a good title for what a lot of people are doing these days. “Run Like Hell” is surprisingly subtle (and that great trumpet comes back to haunt us in it).

“When It Happens (Don’t Mind Me)” starts off with Dario Argento-film score manic percussion and synths. The sounds of “Another Crashed Car” bring to mind images of an open cell phone (probably being used pre-collision) call going unanswered and windshield wipers scraping across cracked glass. “Temp Fix” is short and…odd.

“Trust Fades” fades right into “A Really Bad Night.” The two themes go well together. “Your New Normal” is like a strange breath across your neck, and “Just Breathe” might be the creepiest song on the album. “Right Behind You” calms things down a bit.

“Turn This Off Please” is the longest track on the album (over thirteen minutes) and slinks around the room like some sort of smoky adder. The piano on “So Tired” is like something you’d hear on the score to Exorcist III. The closing track is “Almost Dawn,” which is a bit uplifting after all the doom and gloom of the previous tracks. Yes, it still has some creepy elements in it (like that warped music box) but it still conveys a sense that the sun will come out soon and we’ll all embrace the light.

Nine Inch Nails seem to be acknowledging that things look bleak, but they also encourage us to not become overwhelmed. Things will turn around in time. All things are impermanent, even suffering.

Keep your mind open.

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