Zeistencroix : Deceiving
The Music : 7.5 out of 10
The Pump : 7 out of 10
What do you get when you combine a darkened tunnel with LED lights, throat-singing inspired vocals, and danceable industrial rock beats? You get Zeistencroix. Their latest single is a twisting and turning track that had me second guessing what’s coming next around every corner: Are we heading into a breakdown? Is it going to get soft and we’re gonna hear them do little dadadadada’s on the mic? I don’t know. You never know. And I really enjoyed the structure of the song for that. It’s a fast and rigid song that does well for those in-between sets at the gym where you’re not pushing yourself to your limit, but you still need to keep going.
The Actions : Container
The Music : 7.5 out of 10
The Pump : 4 out of 10
Low and warped electronics deliver me into this track as deep vocals mumble in the foreground. A formal beat soon introduces itself, a tension slowly ramping up. Ambient textures lead into a noisy verse that’s equally raw and well-produced. The Actions deliver a very well-rounded dark electronic track that knows how to vibe; something you play in a smoky underground bar where no one wants to know each other. This isn’t something I’d find adding to a gym playlist as it doesn’t get me amped up, but for everyday listening it’s perfect.
System96 : Afterimage
The Music : 7.5 out of 10
The Pump : 3 out of 10
This is an act that I haven’t heard of before but considering they’ve got close to 18,000 listeners a month on Spotify, maybe I should. Then again those are just stats. But now I’m adding onto that number. Hell yeah, baby. Anyway, System96 is primarily a synthwave act that dives into dream pop and electronic nostalgia; Afterimage is a perfect example of that. Dreamy backing synths behind bouts of percussion and double-kicks that could easily see me dreaming. While I could easily see myself performing some yoga to this single, I don’t think I’d find myself slamming weights and plates to it. Gonna have to add this to a relaxation playlist.
Dismantled : Zero
The Music : 8 out of 10
The Pump : 5 out of 10
Ah, good ol’Dismantled. Definitely a name I remember hearing about often enough but not one that I ever really spent too much time listening to. I do remember listening to the P9 remix of their single Breed to Death a ton when I was a teenager and I just tried going back to it. Time was not pleasant to it. Moving forward and to the now and Dismantled is coming back with a whole new album and he’s just released the first single for it titled Zero. It’s quite melancholic; it sticks with what Dismantled is known for, elegant electronics with dark undertones and harsh, whispered, digitally altered vocals as if an AI is attempting to speak through unknown machines. It’s quite lovely. As far as the PUMP goes, this isn’t going to cut it. It’s nice and fluffy and I’m lifting as heavy and as hard as I can, this might make me go limp. Gonna have to add this to a Dark Electronics to Sleep To playlist.
Nightcrawler : Reactor 4
The Music : 8 out of 10
The Pump : 7 out of 10
It’s quite eerie how since the dawn of the nuclear bomb how we’ve always been under threat by it; the very mutter of war has people thinking the world is going to end with nuclear deterrents. And it’s also quite fun to see how musicians interpret that into music. Thus comes Nightcrawler with his latest single Reactor 4, a five-minute some second club banger coming off his forthcoming album Uranium 235. What we get is a dark techno beat with some samples dished throughout; it’s like dark electro from the 2010s without the shitty distorted vox and no-production efforts. It’s a pretty bumpy and rhythmic single, if not a bit repetitive at times. The pump though? Oh, yeah, it’s there. Not entirely, but pretty much. I could see me bumping to this in between sets getting ready to give it another go on a set-to-failure. So, nice.
