No One Can Ever Know

Gloomy harsh Scottish shoegaze/post-punk, hints of industrial, goth, metal. Very Joy Division. Epic crests, punishing atmosphere, think East Berlin and cold grey skies. Essentially dark new wave under a heavily-accented (check out the trilled 'r's) really-foreign-sounding drawl. At times the drawl approaches Misfits-esque tremble levels. These cats may as well be singing in German.

RIYL: Joy Division, Ministry, NIN

try: 1, 5, 6, 9
no FCCs

*1. (4:27) mid-slow, relaxed and broody. dark, 8-bit-addled, wheezy, heavy. the tension between the hi-reg synth and deep bass is sort of fantastic.
2. (6:26) takes ~25 sec to warm up. then: mid-fast kit, insidious bass, snarling guitar, discordant melody, proggish.
3. (4:24) circular reverby hella-minor light-touch electric guitar (cough radiohead) roots the track. the single. different.
4. (4:20) ~12 sec gear-up. midtempo. great electric riffs and suitably creepy sex-and-violence lyrics.
*5. (5:19) spare start. plodding, dark. organ. sinister and accusing. trashcan drums. picks up and gets awesome 2 min to end with hella moody synth.
*6. (4:09) mid-fast, cold, achey. somber cooking bass, hard kit, melodic vox. swirls.
7. (5:11) slow, beatless. doom-and-gloom low-reg piano and low-frequency static. gradual picked guitar build, then ploddy bash-out drums.
8. (4:39) busy rudder bass and high keys. swirly. really big synth. aggressive, but not as despairing as the rest of the record.
9. (5:53) jagged combat guitar and creepster high-note pulses. military kit. ends on a vocal line.