Back at it after the break and in the New Year! We hope your festivities were enjoyable, whatever they were; ours were both low-key and family focused. The holidays’ rep as a slow news period held up in terms of tour/festival/general scene news so with not a huge amount of news to report off the top we’re setting ourselves on catching up with a few late year releases we might have missed, plus the smattering of stuff which saw release over the break, starting with the first Tracks post of 2025!
You can run, but you can’t. (HIDE)
Devours, “Sports Car Era”
Our favourite Vancouver synthpop gaylien Devours returns in a new form as he enters the titular Sports Car Era. As promised we’re hearing some darker and more discordant sounds and ideas in this taster from the upcoming album, and if like us you live in Vancouver, the opening line “I don’t want to go through life at a distance/Squeezed out of the city and priced out of existence” should hit you where it hurts. But then that’s the whole thing with Devours; outrageous sincerity and deep and occasionally excoriating self-examination. Every record is a gift, and we are hotly anticipating this one.
INVA//ID, “G.F.M”
New music from LA’s INVA//ID is always cause for excitement, and after Chris Rivera & co whetted our appetite with a fantastic cover of PTP’s “Show Me Your Spine” in 2024, we’re keen to dig into new full length The Agony Index. Tunes like this show off the uncanny knack the band’s always had for linking their roots in hardcore with seriously deep appreciation for vintage 80s and early 90s industrial rock, and with all the ferocity you’d want in such a combination.
HIDE, “I Lick the Blade Clean”
Chicago noisy industrialists HIDE keep getting more intense and difficult with each passing release. “I Lick the Blade Clean” is the second song we’ve heard from them in recent memory (the other being the just released “Suffer”) that highlights how much of the trappings of their sound has been pared down until what remains is noise, clatter, and deeply uncomfortable but necessary lyrics. If you’re missing noisy, unpleasant industrial, welp, here you go.
Black.n, “Ignocracia”
Pildoras Tapes slowing its roll for most of 2024 was unfortunate, as they’ve earned a rep as one of the best curated sources for modern, grimy body music in Central and Sourthern America. Thankfully, they just offered something new up in the form of a solid tape from Argentinian producer Black.n. Tunes like this one do a great time of hearkening back to earlier moments in history when EBM and techno crossed over a la Fixmer/McCarthy.
Menthüll, “Automode”
If you listened to our podcast flagging tracks from the past year you’ll know how closely we’ve been tracking Quebec duo Menthüll over the past years, and their run of winsome, whimsical singles continues apace. New cut “Automode” draws a line between modern, snappy electropop and classic synthpop, with a heavy dusting of the dreamy, continental coldwave style which first drew them into our orbit.
Cardinal Noire, “Just One Fix”
Finally, a little digestif from our favourite Finnish post-industrial loyalists Cardinal Noire, in the form of a double covers single featuring their version of Skinny Puppy’s “Inquisition” and Ministry’s “Just One Fix”. We enjoyed the December LP Vitriol from the duo, so having a nice follow-up in the form of two familiar, but rejigged numbers in their style is nothing but gold as far as we’re concerned. Due to licensing you can’t buy the Puppy cover on Bandcamp, but the Ministry joint is available for your listening and streaming pleasure right now.
