We’re rejiggering our week’s posting given the slightly odd experience of our national stat holiday falling on a Tuesday, so it’s Tracks today and reviews coming on Wednesday and Friday. And hey, if you’re at all curious about how we as Canadians feel about celebrations like Canada Day or patriotism in general during this strange new era of trade war, well, that’s something we specifically touched upon in our Patreon-only bonus Bombers podcast this past weekend, but we certainly don’t need to dig into that now while offering you six fresh cuts.
Grimmer than thou, it’s Lebanon Hanover
Sleek Teeth, “Same”
The hybrid style of LA duo Sleek Teeth have made them one of the most talked about bands of the last 12 months, and a new tune like this only pushes them further up the list of bands we’re most pumped to see at Terminus at the end of the month. Expertly blending synthpop, EBM, classic rave tracks, and a plain old sense of pop songwriting pays off for them well with “Same”, and keeps their run of Kite-like quality control going with this being just their sixth track to go public.
Comaduster, “Way With Me”
If you checked out the podcast last week, you heard us talking about how much we’re anticipating the new album from Comaduster, a full five years since the project’s last missive Darker Matter. Our first taste of that soon the be announced record is the single “Way With Me”, a classic example of Real Cardinal’s insanely detailed production and sound design, as filtered through his particular style of emotional songwriting. If you’ve never heard Comaduster before, this tells you what you need to know about the band’s ordered chaos, if you’re already a fan like us, you’ll appreciate the mixture of the familiar and the alien here. Welcome back, you’ve been missed.
Zanias, “Dawn”
We were talking on last week’s podcast about artists with records in the pipeline we’re looking forward to, and since then Zanias has dropped another tune from her forthcoming Cataclysm LP. Lyrically it offers a clear historically materialist read on the current panoply of disasters and atrocities we’re all weathering, and continues to sprinkle in just a little hint of contemporary hyperpop into the emotive mix of ambient and electro we heard on Cataclysm‘s preceding title track.
Street Sex, “Turn Blue”
It’s been a few years since we’ve had some new machine-operated death trips from Texas nightmare merchants Street Sects, but it looks like August will bring not just a new Street Sects album in Dry Drunk, but also Full Color Eclipse, an LP released under the slightly nudged name Street Sex. If the sound of this track is representative, it looks like we’re in store for a slightly more electro and funk influenced spin on Street Sect’s sound, but don’t worry – with lyrics like “fuck until your eyes pop out, then maybe you’ll never suffer again” they’re not exactly getting coy on us all of a sudden.
Synthetische Lebensform, “Distance (feat. Eudgen Provkov)”
We’re fans of Russian electro-industrialists Synthetische Lebensform, and thus were very keen to check out the first single from them since the release of their February LP Current Profile. While initially suprised by the vocal style and emphasis on guitars on the song, we were quickly taken with the song’s dramatic chorus and scope, which brings :SITD: of all bands to mind. Not what we expected, and all the more interesting for it. An album of this wouldn’t be unwelcome.
Lebanon Hanover, “Torture Rack”
We kinda neglected to mention Lebanon Hanover in our rundown of forthcoming 2025 albums, probably because we didn’t know that Fabrika was releasing Asylum Lullabies on July 10th. “Torture Rack” features the influential darkwave duo at their most gloomy and funereal, with Larissa Iceglass solemnly intoning each lyric with the duo’s signature gravitas. Not exactly a Summer fun time single, unless your summer plans include glumly staring into the middle distance, which lets face it, many of the folks reading this probably do have on the agenda. Fuck us up Lebanon Hanover.
