Rocker (feedbot)
Platinum Member
German post punks TV CULT describe their music as “somewhere between The Cure and Minor.” Their debut album, 2023’s ‘Colony’, lent hard on their punk influences and led to the band touring with acts such as Ditz and Militarie Gun. ‘Industry’, the sophomore follow-up, sees the band embrace their own label of brutal post punk, creating sonic spaces that are dark, industrial, and psychedelic in equal measure. It’s an album that is actively and reflexively political, a reaction to and rumination on the world in which we have all unwittingly found ourselves.
Lead single ‘Communion’ opens the album as a manifesto. The Cure’s influence is immediately obvious in Martin Hughes’s guitars, and is apt given the theme of the song, and of the album more widely. Just as The Cure used the darker space of post punk to explore Robert Smith’s fragmenting relation to religion in 1981’s ‘Faith’, TV CULT are exploring that same fragmentation here, now in the context of the rise of the far right and the genocide in Gaza. The chorus refrain, growled more than sung, of “Silence, silence, a crack in the stained glass” holds the song’s central tension.
‘Industry’ is an album that attempts to grapple with the horrors that we see on a daily basis from a spiritual basis. Motifs of guilt and shame run throughout, as does imagery of violence and oppression being committed in the name of religion. ‘Communion’ sets this in motion, and poses the question; are we capable of saving ourselves?
The concept of oppression dominates the album’s other two singles, ‘Overpressure’ and ‘Crack The Whip’. ‘Overpressure’ is a deeply Cure-coded song, with sparse guitars played over driving bass and drums. Contrary to the name, most of the song is laid back, with the exception of a tension-building chorus and Marco Natale’s harsh vocals. ‘Crack The Whip’ creates a hypnotic, electronic soundscape in which Natale’s urgent, raw shouts are cushioned. There’s a distinct techno influence here, but also a clear confidence showed in both songs, allowing the vocals themselves to provide that sense of urgency within a more languid space.
Where do TV CULT identify the cause of that oppression? It’s in the song that lends the album its name, ‘Primary Crusher’; “Primary Crusher destroys, Primary Crusher employs, And the system must not change as production stays the same”. It’s the economy, stupid. ‘Primary Crusher’ is the band at their most punk here, and it’s completely appropriate that they use this song to call out the culpability of capitalism and the war machine in creating and profiting from human devastation.
That anti-capitalist sentiment is by no means restricted to ‘Primary Crusher’. ‘Moonflower’ paints the picture of a spiritual staining of “the masses” and addresses the perpetrators of genocide: “Our contempt for you is pure.” ‘Gavage’ – the word for the force feeding of animals via a tube into their stomachs – is the other punkier number on ‘Industry’ and addresses endless consumption and anger being turned on each other. Then there is the most vocally sparse song on the album, ‘Whirlwind’, a churning, tense song whose five words, repeated over and over as battle cries, seem to hold a revolutionary answer; “Whirlwind, Free it, Power, Unleashed”.
‘Industry’ closes on the atmospheric and apocalyptic ‘Symbols of Death’. It’s perhaps the most sonically ambitious song here, synths creating a soft background, muttered lyrics backing Natale’s shouts. It’s bleak, moving, and unhurried. As the music fades out, we’re left with Natale chanting “Resting in power,” yelled with real emotion.
TV CULT have achieved something impressive with ‘Industry’. It’s musically and sonically beautiful, using the single melodic guitar alongside harsh, angular, brutalist bass and drums and add a dash of synth here and there to help build an atmosphere of dread and anger that stays consistent throughout. It is also a political tour de force – not simply yelling about injustice but exploring its causes and our own complicity while keeping the finger of blame pointed, rightly, at the capitalist system itself and the people who drive it forward into social destruction.
WILL BRIGHT
Lead single ‘Communion’ opens the album as a manifesto. The Cure’s influence is immediately obvious in Martin Hughes’s guitars, and is apt given the theme of the song, and of the album more widely. Just as The Cure used the darker space of post punk to explore Robert Smith’s fragmenting relation to religion in 1981’s ‘Faith’, TV CULT are exploring that same fragmentation here, now in the context of the rise of the far right and the genocide in Gaza. The chorus refrain, growled more than sung, of “Silence, silence, a crack in the stained glass” holds the song’s central tension.
‘Industry’ is an album that attempts to grapple with the horrors that we see on a daily basis from a spiritual basis. Motifs of guilt and shame run throughout, as does imagery of violence and oppression being committed in the name of religion. ‘Communion’ sets this in motion, and poses the question; are we capable of saving ourselves?
The concept of oppression dominates the album’s other two singles, ‘Overpressure’ and ‘Crack The Whip’. ‘Overpressure’ is a deeply Cure-coded song, with sparse guitars played over driving bass and drums. Contrary to the name, most of the song is laid back, with the exception of a tension-building chorus and Marco Natale’s harsh vocals. ‘Crack The Whip’ creates a hypnotic, electronic soundscape in which Natale’s urgent, raw shouts are cushioned. There’s a distinct techno influence here, but also a clear confidence showed in both songs, allowing the vocals themselves to provide that sense of urgency within a more languid space.
Where do TV CULT identify the cause of that oppression? It’s in the song that lends the album its name, ‘Primary Crusher’; “Primary Crusher destroys, Primary Crusher employs, And the system must not change as production stays the same”. It’s the economy, stupid. ‘Primary Crusher’ is the band at their most punk here, and it’s completely appropriate that they use this song to call out the culpability of capitalism and the war machine in creating and profiting from human devastation.
That anti-capitalist sentiment is by no means restricted to ‘Primary Crusher’. ‘Moonflower’ paints the picture of a spiritual staining of “the masses” and addresses the perpetrators of genocide: “Our contempt for you is pure.” ‘Gavage’ – the word for the force feeding of animals via a tube into their stomachs – is the other punkier number on ‘Industry’ and addresses endless consumption and anger being turned on each other. Then there is the most vocally sparse song on the album, ‘Whirlwind’, a churning, tense song whose five words, repeated over and over as battle cries, seem to hold a revolutionary answer; “Whirlwind, Free it, Power, Unleashed”.
‘Industry’ closes on the atmospheric and apocalyptic ‘Symbols of Death’. It’s perhaps the most sonically ambitious song here, synths creating a soft background, muttered lyrics backing Natale’s shouts. It’s bleak, moving, and unhurried. As the music fades out, we’re left with Natale chanting “Resting in power,” yelled with real emotion.
TV CULT have achieved something impressive with ‘Industry’. It’s musically and sonically beautiful, using the single melodic guitar alongside harsh, angular, brutalist bass and drums and add a dash of synth here and there to help build an atmosphere of dread and anger that stays consistent throughout. It is also a political tour de force – not simply yelling about injustice but exploring its causes and our own complicity while keeping the finger of blame pointed, rightly, at the capitalist system itself and the people who drive it forward into social destruction.
WILL BRIGHT