And here we are, with our favourite records of the year in focus. As always, we’re never sure how much an exercise like this says about the year that was in dark music in and of itself as opposed to the subjective year we had in the field, but we always have a blast doing it, and we hope that if nothing else it brings your attention to some records you might have missed. We’ll be back tomorrow with a podcast recapping the list and also highlighting some honourable mentions. Thanks for sticking with us through another year of coverage here at ID:UD, and we’ll see you in the new year!
5. Ashbury Heights
Ghost House Sessions vol. 1
Out of Line
Ashbury Heights’ Ghost House Sessions Vol. 1 is simultaneously the swedish electropop act’s most characteristic and most idiosyncratic release to date. Forgoing their usual approach of releasing an album every few years with an adjusted line-up and a sound tweaked to match contemporary production sounds and ideas, this massive double album took form over the course of several years with project leader Anders Hagström tapping a wide array of collaborators and indulging a number of style exercises, going well beyond any musical territory explored by the band up ’til this point. What’s genuinely striking about that approach is that no matter whose voice appears on a track (be it Blutengel’s Ulrike on “A Lifetime in Service of Darkness, Danny Blu on the brooding “Cutscenes”, or ethereal darkwave chanteuse Madil Hardis on “A Cut in Place” and “Wild Eyes” amongst others), or what kind of song it is, the sound is Ashbury Heights through and through. That speaks to the persona that Hagström has developed for the band, allowing enough flexibility to record songs as far out as the cod-reggae of “In the Dark”, the oompah-band schmaltz of “Halcyon” and the modern EDM of “Escape Velocity” and still have them be unmistakably themselves. It’s an identity defined by those trademark melodies, the clever but never insincere lyrics, and the Swedish popcraft that has always set them apart from their contemporaries; Ghost House Sessions Vol. 1 is Ashbury Heights, even when it’s not being any version of Ashbury Heights we’ve ever heard before and may never hear again. Read our full review.
4. Feyleux
Midnight Hearts
Swiss Dark Nights
We’ve been writing and talking for more than a decade about the priority darkwave places on atmosphere, allowing for so many different expressions and sub-sub-genres to drift and luxuriate within its nebulous realm. Arriving fully formed with their debut LP, North Carolina duo Feyleux reminded us all this year of just how wide ranging the genre could be, touching upon everything from the windswept ethereality of classic Projekt releases to pure goth rock to dream pop to synth-buoyed dancefloor numbers. Keeping so many plates spinning without Midnight Hearts falling into chaotic discord would be an impressive feat in and of itself, but it also brought us some of the strongest, most memorable, and most affecting dark tunes we heard this year. There were immediate tracks like “Blood Shadows” and “Icy Veins” which leapt out of the speakers with bracing beats and misty guitars, but also more subtle pieces of songcraft, perhaps belying Laurie Roroden and Erica Gilstrap’s preceding tenures in indie rock. The way “Cerulean Heart” just barely betrays the emotion obscured behind its austere, near waltz-like lilt, or the bed of lush synths which carry Roroden’s voice aloft when the bittersweet chorus of “Lunaria Swirls” begins to bloom were part and parcel of what kept us returning to Midnight Hearts throughout the year. It sounds as though the band’s already begun work on a follow-up, and while the prospect of more material of this caliber bodes well for North American darkwave, Midnight Hearts deserves its dark roses at the end of the year. Read our full review.
3. Urban Heat
The Tower
Artoffact Records
Urban Heat rode a wave of buzz into 2024, based on the electricity of the Austin trio’s live performances. The question was, could the band translate the energy and charisma that had been earning them fans on the road to a record. Enter The Tower, a record that answered the question, and silenced doubters in one fell swoop. Using post-punk as a homebase, frontman Jonathan Horstmann and his bandmates Kevin Naquin and Paxel Foley take their sound in a wide variety of directions, dipping into club-ready darkwave (“Right Time of Night”), groovy mid-tempo electro (“Sanitizer”), and down the pipe guitar rock (“Seven Safe Places”). No matter the direction, the fundamentals remain the same: strong choruses, tight arrangements that work for home or club listening, and Horstmann’s magnetic presence as a frontman, the band’s not-so-secret weapon in a live setting captured entirely through his lyrics and rich baritone vocals. It’s a perfect storm of an LP, with the band’s charming personality, their songwriting, and the production all in complete lockstep, performed with no small amount of heart and a deep and effortless cool that doesn’t clash with its melancholic or its anthemic turns. The Tower truly has it all, emotional highs and lows, DJ-friendly dance cuts, and wicked collection of hooks that should keep in rotation for Urban Heat’s still-growing fanbase for years to come. It’ll be a tough act for them to follow, but then again, The Tower is such a triumph of potential realized, that it’s hard to bet against them. Read our full review.
2. Haujobb
The Machine In The Ghost
Dependent
The boys are back in town. And by “the boys” we of course mean one of the most uncompromising, courageous, and important acts to ever emerge from the ghetto of post-industrial music, and by “back in town” we mean continuing to produce some of the most engrossing yet maddeningly cryptic electronic music you’ll ever encounter, regardless of genre, after nearly a decade on hiatus. Sure, in a perfect world the Haujobb catalog would be celebrated by critics with no real familiarity with industrial alongside that of Burial, Coil, and Aphex Twin, but even cursory contact with the tension and unease which permeates every second of The Machine In The Ghost is a reminder that our world is anything but perfect. Simultaneously imbued with motorik precision and uncanny chaos, Dejan Samardzic and Daniel Myer’s latest compositions push the rhythmic envelope further than any of their predecessors, weaving between sleek and chilly minimalist beats and clattering excesses of noise. Note how the hissing and pinging components of “Uselessness” begin to assemble themselves into a lurching mechanism, paradoxically gaining momentum as every metallic beat seems to threaten to send the whole affair crashing into the scrap yard. Also, all of his time sojourning in the impersonal, wholly instrumental world of dark techno hasn’t done anything to Myer’s presence and gravitas as a front man; he’s still a coolly menacing presence vocally, knowing just how to build and maintain tension only to release it with a whisper of intonation on “In The Headlights”‘ lurching game of binaries. We don’t deserve them, but if Haujobb was in it for their due credit they would have packed it in long ago. Read our full review.
1. Twin Tribes
Pendulum
Beso De Muerte Records
The recent resurgence of interest, or at least awareness, of goth and darkwave music in mainstream circles has brought back with it, as it always does every eight or so years, the eternal discussions of genre definition, gatekeeping, poserdom, generation gaps, and the like (it’s tempting to call such discussions “tiresome”, but we’re not above getting our hands dirty from time to time). A record like Pendulum is a balm in these discordant times, then, not just by virtue of its quality but also by virtue of the effectively universal acclaim Texas two-piece Twin Tribes have come by organically and honestly over the last half decade. We can all waste our time splitting hairs or questioning each other’s goth cred as much as we want, but there’s simply no getting around the realization which Pendulum has cemented in the minds of so many of us: Twin Tribes are the best darkwave band of their generation.
Arriving with fully developed knacks for both melodies and composition with their 2018 debut Shadows, Twin Tribes’ work has progressed by degrees of refinement and subtle shifts in focus ever since. Where Ceremony tilted ever so slightly towards classic goth rock, Pendulum course corrects by stressing the synth programming which lies beneath Luis Navarro and Joel Niño, Jr.’s deft guitar and bass work. Whether it’s in the lush swing of closing lullaby “Meadow” or in the immediate, Xymox-esque punch of smash hit “Monolith”, Twin Tribes find just the right synth palettes to underscore Pendulum‘s rock solid songwriting without ever obscuring the economy and hooks which have been their calling card since day one.
And by god does this record have those qualities in spades; “Another Life” takes a simple configuration of synth, bass, and speedy drum programming and rides them into earworm territory with nary a pause, darkly energizing to the point that it can be easy to overlook how much atmosphere Navarro and Niño, Jr. conjure up. “Cauldron of Thorns” flips that formula, starting with crushed velvet dramatics of the most opulent variety, intoxicating enough to distract the listener from it’s sneakily catchy guitar and vocal melodies. It’s a ludicrously consistent record in that regard, with no song failing to deliver the atmospherics or an immediate chorus, to the point that even trying to put your finger on a favourite song can be difficult – they’re all that good.
Unlike so many of our our top end of year picks, we came into this process with no obvious frontrunner for the number one spot. Consequently we spent a lot of time listening to the albums that seemed like they could take the prize, which is where the true strength of Pendulum became so apparent: we knew from the moment of release that Twin Tribes hadn’t lost a step in the years between releases, but that an album could sound so fresh, so immediate, and so imminently listenable on the hundredth listen like it was the first? That’s a rare and special quality that made the choice easy. Twin Tribes’ Pendulum is our album of the year for 2024.
And that’s it! Year End Wrap-Up podcast tomorrow, then we’ll be on hiatus until the new year. Thanks for reading, and we’ll be back soon!
