Blood Rave
Exponential Decay
self-released
The music on Californian project Blood Rave’s sophomore release Exponential Decay inhabits a space between electro-darkwave and EBM, a meeting of sounds that has proven to be fertile in recent years. While there are certainly plenty of easy points of comparison for the dancefloor ready tunes on the album (Dancing Plague and Ultra Sunn come to mind), there are also some strong indications here that the project is making strides towards a more distinctive sound of their own.
“Can’t Resist” is a strong example of that development; the foundations are a workmanlike body music bassline and graven-vocals, but are accented with both slow-motion horror movie pads and some punchy sampled grunts, the former element upping the atmospherics, while the latter cuts through them to lay in some additional tension. “Abyss” takes that unease still further by introducing more layers of atonal sound and ramping up the layers of percussion, the central groove feeling more manic as it rolls on with more weight balanced precariously on top of it. “Through Your Eyes” reverses course by tossing in some more melodic sequences, adjacent to darker stripes of synthpop, albeit with more sickly and forlorn vocals that keep it from ever feeling light.
While those tracks certainly jump out on repeated listens (along with a few others like the double time anxiety of “Code in Grey” and the deconstructed ramp of “Death Awaits”), there’s an equal number that play the project’s sound right down the middle. Tracks like opener “Throwing Weight” never departs significantly from the stock monotone and monochrome approach the band had on its 2024 debut, while “Symphony Explored” flirts with a more goth-rock arrangement but never commits entirely to the excesses in delivery that put songs in the style over the top. There’s nothing bad about these songs per se, but some sameyness does set in, exacerbated by the record’s sound design; you’ll hear similar bass and lead patches pop up across multiple songs, not to mention a particular metallic percussion strike that keeps popping up to the point of distraction.
Still, the willingness to stretch out creatively that Blood Rave displays on Exponential Decay is intriguing, and the growth of the project’s ambitions as compared to their debut early in 2024 is measurable. As sophomore albums go, it does the job of expanding and refining in ways that will keep Blood Rave on dark music watchlists in the years to come.