Surge of the Shameless

By RingMaster Review on November 15, 2022 • ( 0 )

Another month and another tasty bunch of singles searched out by our friend Shauna of Canadian dreamscapers UMMAGMA and SHAMELESS PROMOTION PR to explore. Unsurprisingly it was a fertile bunch from which we give your ears…

photo by William Faith-

Dystopian Mirror is the new single from Chicago-based dark alternative post-punk band, THE BELLWETHER SYNDICATE; the track a sure involvement for ears and thoughts and a potent teaser for the band’s upcoming new album, Vestige & Vigil, which is scheduled for release in the first half of 2023 via SETT RECORDS and NEXILIS RECORDS.

THE BELLWETHER SYNDICATE explores the “voices of mental illness” on Dystopian Mirror, a song bred of intimate and personal reflection and observation. It is a predacious affair, hungry in its nagging and intrusive contagion though its initial emergence is a shadowy calm, a sonic haze of an invitation before erupting into a virulent and as magnetically challenging proposal. The guitars of William Faith (former member of Christian Death, Mephisto Walz, Shadow Project and co-founder of Faith & The Muse) and wife Sarah Rose Faith, they the core heart of the band with its live body completed by Philly Peroxide (keyboards, percussion), Stevyn Grey (drums) and Corey Gorey (guitars), instantly bring that gnarly nagging to bear on the senses, the former’s as compelling tones alongside a snarling bass settling on ears once a slight lull in the song’s surge before it swells again.

Already the track’s infectiousness is a trespass of pleasure, burrowing under the skin and manipulating our subservience and increasingly so through every revolution of its dark enterprise further shaped by tenebrific keys. Drama soaks every twist and turn, its atmosphere thick yet lively with Killing Joke meets Theatre of Hate essences only adding to its glorious and simultaneously relentless emotively tense trespass.

Dystopian Mirror is simply superb, an esurient track which addictively controls the listener, as we found chasing them into further exploration of creator and rich anticipation of the forthcoming album from THE BELLWETHER SYNDICATE

A track similarly contemplating mental issues is NVM (Remix) from LA-based alternative pop artist FAITH MARIE. It is a track giving a dark and lush electronic kick to depression and another grown in personal experience and intimacy.

The new remix by ELL, re-envisions Faith Marie’s original version of NVM and her first music release since 2020. A collaboration with UUin, Inc., the single merges her trademark orchestral pop with electronic adventure as it revisits a song when, its author in her words, “I had a very difficult time grasping my mental illness.”

Contrasting the song above, the single is a downtempo proposal but with its own eager infectiousness wrapped in emotive rumination and evocative tension, both calmly but firmly offered. Innocence and a childhood like joy are thickly wrapped in shadows within the song, electronic and vocal pop spirit trespassed by darker injections of contemplation.

Lyrically powerful, atmospherically crepuscular and an orchestration of catchiness, NVM (Remix) is another which offered a firm hand to enjoyment.

With his new album, Eulogy to Christa: A Tribute to the Music & Mystique of Nico, hours into its release, CHRIS CONNELLY offers a freshly unveiled single to provide another rich lure to the first. Ripcord, Ripcord is a song Connelly wrote surrounding a little-known detail about Nico’s life – her rape by a military officer while she was a teenager holding an administrative position for the US Army. It was a truly traumatic moment which impacted on the rest of her life and the creative breath and spirit of Nico which shapes his colossal 24-track offering released by Shipwrecked Industries in the USA and Easy Action in the UK.

Connelly evocatively contemplates that particular moment within the song, a raw breath bringing a tension to its challenge which in turn invites similar intimate dispute within the listener. Even so, it too proves an inherently infectious proposal, an untamed one but an eagerly communicable encounter which drew us in and with greater involvement by the listen.

Discord woven and lyrically biting as the enticement of keys swirled with their own atypical tempting, Ripcord, Ripcord proved one compelling encounter.

As we were contemplating Amazon, the recent single from American indie rocker ROB MUNK, he went and released another in the shape of Youth so we thought we would present both here, especially as each track made for fertile temptation.

Both songs come from Munk’s new album Phased Out which is released November 18^th via Montclair-based MAGIC DOOR LABEL. With eager individuality, they are two slices of indie rock with indie pop infectiousness in their persuasions; neither song a forceful proposal but unapologetically lively in their infectious incitements.

Contemplating the future and demise of the major rainforest, Amazon belies its serious musing and message with its animated jangle and eager catchiness, yet that contagiousness only brings the lyrical and emotive thoughts of the song home with greater impact.

Youth sees Munk present an ode to misspent youth, a celebration of a time we have obviously all embraced with particular memories soon aligning to the celebration shared by the song. As inescapably infectious as its predecessor, the track does have a calmer gait but presented within an almost punk like appetite amid rock pop enterprise; bodies swung here with increasing lust through every round of its excitable jangle and Munk’s enterprise across both tracks.