Run Level Zero
The Rift EP
self-released
Swedish act Run Level Zero’s reactivation over the past six years has been a nimble one, hopping between the classic electro-industrial work which made their original run so engrossing and the band’s always expanding interests in broader electronics. That variety is nicely on display in The Rift EP, which bobs between those modes much in the same way RLZ did on the preceding A Strange New Pain LP. “Is This What You Want” calls back to the band’s original debt to Front Line styled Vancouver school, albeit in a much more stripped down and brusque manner, but there’s none of FLA’s fascination with future warfare in “Healed”, where the futility of war is framed in an elegiac electro-pop setting. The baroque, jumpy “In Formation” finds something of mid-period Haujobb’s focus on tech and progress in their most abstract forms, while the tense EBM pulse of “How Can It Be” is something else entirely: dialed in at an unsettling BPM, it’s simultaneously minimalist and deeply cinematic, with the weary croon of Hans Åkerman making for an uncanny contrast with just how anxious the track is. RLZ are vets at this point with a ground up understanding of the origins, techniques, and pitfalls of the genres from which they’ve emerged, and are continuing to change up their delivery to suit that study and exploration.
Nuovo Testamento
Trouble
Discoteca Italia
We’ve long since given up on trying to explain how a straight up italo disco act fits into the broader world of dark electronic music; suffice to say that Nuovo Testamento’s pedigree (members have done time in death rock bands Horror Vacui and Crimson Scarlet), their energized live shows and their sheer enjoyability have made them an easy sale for audiences in Our Thing. The question at the forefront of our minds though, was how long the general interest in italo would last, and would the international trio stick with it or evolve their sound. New EP Trouble answers the handily, with the band following the natural flow of their sound from it’s eighties roots into house and nrg sounds. The piano-led opener “Picture Perfect” only needs to tweaks their formula ever so slightly, adding some brighter synth sounds and funkier rhythm programming to take them into new territory. It’s on the follow-up “Dream On” that the changes become most apparent, with eurodance plucks and vocalist Chelsey Crowley going for a slightly pitchier delivery, all before the breakbeat driven breakdown puts it over the top. And while the deep house-isms of “On the Edge” and the balaeric vibes of “2 Hearts” are a far cry from what brought them to the dance musically, there’s still plenty of the band’s personality at play; the latter has one of their best yearning choruses, and closer “Soldier For Love” is a tremendous synthpop song, however you want to parse it genre-wise. Whether the band continues their speedrun through the last forty years of electronic dance music or sticks here for a while, anyone who who enjoyed their preceding LPs should be too busy dancing to speculate what their next move will be.
