Okay we make this plea every year, but it’s only out of some neurotic fear of missing out: if you have albums that you think would fit well in our Year End coverage, but that we haven’t reviewed or mentioned on the site, speak now. We try to keep up, and have a pretty good grip on what we need to get done between now and mid-December when our Top 25 needs to be solidified, but there’s always a few late contenders in the mix, and the field feels pretty open for some new entries as of this writing. Drop ’em in the comments below!

Menthüll, “Jargon”
Regular readers of these Tracks columns might be getting fairly accustomed to us featuring a Menthüll cut here every three or so months, but as long as the Quebec duo keep infusing their combo of synthpop, new wave, and cold wave with as much thought and originality as this number has, not to mention their ear for harmonies, that ain’t gonna change. This prose poem-driven piece maybe isn’t quite as direct as some of their more dancefloor focused stuff, but still finds a bevy of corners into which grooves and baubles can be stashed. Somewhat reminiscent of Severed Heads side project Coklacoma.

Camlann, “Ronny (Burn in Hell)”
Our favourite indonesian darkwavers Camlann get real intense on new single “Ronny (Burn in Hell)”, and yeah, this rules. Their LP last year DISMANTLE! was one of our favourites from last year, largely for the number of ideas and styles it touched on while remaining very much its own thing. That record had some good growls and shouts on it, but nothing like this new cut, feels pretty pointed at someone in specific, who no doubt knows what they did to bring this out of the otherwise quite composed duo.

Lights of Euphoria, “Surrender”
Infacted house band Lights of Euphoria have dabbled in a lot of styles over the years; they’ve been dark electro, ebm, synthpop, and most recently broadly an electropop act. New single “Surrender” has some of the charm of their best singles over the years, due in part to the smooth vocals of Jimmy McMahon and Torben Schmidt’s tastefully modern production. Just a pleasant little slice of something from an act who have persisted for some decades now.

Schwefelgelb, “IO”
It’s been a year since the last missive from German techno-body act Schwefelgelb, although we’ll admit to not tracking them super closely for a while there. It seemed that just as the new-school body music sound they helped pioneer was kicking off, they turned to more purely techno style production, which while quite nice were not totally our cup of tea. Not sure if “IO” is a return to form per se, but the vocals from Sid Lamar and the bassline make it feel like the sort of thing that drew us to them in the first place. Check that sick break mid-track, this slams.

No Filter, “Sauvages”
Here’s something well off the beaten path via AVANT! Records. France’s No Filter combine early synthpunk bounce with the stormy chants of classic oi. It’s a combination which doesn’t end up in the same oiBM territory as EkoBrottsMyndigheten or Container 90, despite some shared component parts, but instead conjures a strange hybrid of early 80s NDW or French coldwave being carried into Mad Max wastelands.

Vacíos Cuerpos, “Vit​í​ligo”
Mexico’s Vacíos Cuerpos jumped onto our radar late last year with the project’s Hoy Solo Quiero Odiar EP, which added some speed and bounce to contemporary darkwave gloom. A string of stand-alone tracks this year have kept that delivery going, and the latest is no exception. Vocals and a hazy guitar line drift with hypnotic langour while tight and frenetic rhythmic programming whizzes past at double time, creating an uncanny speedball effect.