Author: luciazelenia

Educator by day, moon child by night. Formerly the queen of the Crypt. Currently draining the inkwells for SuperChatParty, Sounds & Shadows, and more.

clipping. Announce ‘Dead Channel Sky’ For March Release: Here’s What We Know So Far

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Since their debut over a decade ago, experimental hip-hop trio clipping. have turned the genre on its ear, with unconventional instrumentation, high concepts, and the commanding delivery of rapper/vocalist Daveed Diggs. The group, consisting of Diggs, Jonathan Snipes, and William Hutson, have had a love affair with the horror genre with their two most recent records, There Existed an Addiction to Blood and Visions of Bodies Being Burned, but now clipping. are turning to the futuristic and nihilistic, adopting a cyberpunk motif with their impending sixth studio album Dead Channel Sky.

Thus far, three singles have been released of the twenty songs on the disc:

“Run It”:  

Released on September 12, 2024, “Run It” introduced the new era for the band with bullet train-speed delivery from Diggs. Percussive and urgent, five minutes feels like no time at all. When Diggs isn’t plowing through his rhymes, the instrumentals bring back memories of the late Nineties and the heyday of industrial-infused electronica. The music video, directed by Lawrence Klein, takes on the same pacing of the song itself, with quick cuts and crash zooms to overwhelm the senses. Assuming you don’t go cross-eyed from trying to follow along, it’s a video where multiple viewings can uncover new things that went unnoticed the previous time.

“Keep Pushing”:  

November 12 brought the second single “Keep Pushing,” a mid-tempo groove with a controlled flow and a sung chorus from Diggs. Given their usual production, this song is lighter and more mainstream-sounding, with string samples and more Nineties-tinged effects on the instrumental. It would not be my first choice for a song to introduce someone to clipping., but as a single and therefore taste of things to come, it works.

“Change The Channel”:  

Released on January 8 alongside the album announcement, this track puts the “punk” in “cyberpunk,” with a firestorm of an instrumental and a delivery to match. At two and a quarter minutes, it’s a short sharp shock of a number, and when Diggs buckles down after the refrain of “everything is very important,” the result is magic. Frenetic and funky, this is a statement song if ever they’ve had one. If only the folks at Genius could determine what some of the lyrics were, as there are a handful of question marks on the song’s lyric sheet on the site currently.


Dead Channel Sky releases on March 14 via Sub Pop Records. Pre-order the album and merch on Bandcamp.

Night Club Tighten Their Grip on Dark Dance-pop With ‘Masochist’

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The tag team of Emily Kavanaugh and Mark Brooks have pumped out their brand of dark pop for well over a decade by this point, landing soundtrack appearances in each of the Deadpool films, as well as scoring the Comedy Central series Moonbeam City. Their third album, 2020’s Die Die Lullaby, landed a #1 debut on the US iTunes Electronic charts, with hits including “Miss Negativity,” “Gossip,” and “Die in the Disco.” Now, the LA twosome have brought us Masochist, another lean mean synthpop machine clocking in at just north of half an hour of bouncy, bassy synths and Kavanaugh’s dynamic vocal range. 

There are some club bangers, runway stompers, and all-around hits on this disc, including the lead single “Crime Scene” and the sleek and seductive “Barbwire Kiss.” The former begs for a sing-along whether in one’s room, on the dance floor, or at the show, with its kinetic chorus and earworm of a melody. The latter speaks of irresistibility and desire over a four-on-the-floor groove and Brooks’ deft synth work.

“Pretty Girls Do Ugly Things” starts off innocently enough with just piano behind Kavanaugh’s vocals before descending into an energetic, full-force number that evokes memories of the previous record’s “Die in the Disco” in more than just the key. Among the treats of the record are the one-two punch of “Let’s Play Revenge!” followed by “The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum), with spooky and saccharine vibes preceding a spooky, swaying good time. 
Night Club are four for four on their full-length releases, with Masochist taking its place as further evolving the band’s sound. Any one of their records serves as a great entry point into their catalog, with this latest entry bringing some of their most accomplished works yet.

The O’Keefe Music Foundation Starts ‘Em Young, As Their School-Age Students Cover NIN’s “Wish”

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When “Wish” won the Best Metal Performance Grammy back in 1993, he was bewildered at the fact that a song with the phrase “fist fuck” in it, to the point where he hopes that such an accomplishment is featured on his epitaph. The song is on a short list of the most recognizable tracks by the industrial rock giants, which also makes it one of the most often-covered of the band’s catalog. Now the folks at the O’Keefe Music Foundation have assigned a section of their students to perform a radio-friendly version of the Broken-era classic.

The Lebanon, Ohio-based nonprofit provides free music education to children, as more and more public schools cut their music and arts programs. Since their inception in 2006, over 1,000 of the foundation’s students have been featured in over 100 different music videos, covering all manner of music genres. The ages of the kids in this video range from eight years old (keytar player Brackston Applegate) to eighteen (drummer Will Bright), with ten-year-old Zoe Franziska assuming vocal duties. 

And before you ask, no, none of the song’s three F-bombs are uttered, with the latter turned into “fist pump,” a far more fitting expression for the birthday party-themed music video. For a yearning and nihilistic tune, the music video is tongue-in-cheek funny, particularly when singer Zoe’s more aggressive vocals come in. She does well, mind, but a preteen girl singing about “on my way to Hell” is going to get a chuckle out of some no matter what.


Check out the music video below, and learn more about the O’Keefe Music Foundation at their website.

SKYND Bring Another Powerful Track Out Of Their Dark Place with “Bianca Devins”

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True crime is a fascinating media phenomenon. Exploration of the most heinous crimes committed by the lowest of society is something not just left to the investigators, detectives, or forensic investigators anymore. Hell, it was the amateur sleuthing of Michelle McNamara that helped name, arrest, and convict the Golden State Killer just a couple of years ago. For some, this visit to the darkest recesses of the human condition is a respite, a moment to breathe against the more general and pedestrian horrors of this life.

SKYND have made their bones upon the true crime wave of popularity, dating all the way back to their first track “Elisa Lam” in 2018. Sonically speaking, the band is electro-industrial at its core, with elements of darkwave, nu metal, and shock rock. The amount of research that the English band puts into each track is nothing short of a labor of love, even when the crime committed had anything but love involved. Such is the case for their most recent effort, “Bianca Devins.”

The titular social media personality was murdered on July 14, 2019, at the age of just seventeen years old. Her killer, who I will not name here, intended to make the crime a murder-suicide, but was unsuccessful in the latter half, and was charged with second-degree murder. Disturbingly enough, the killer posted a photo of the deed to Devins’ Discord server, with the caption “sorry fuckers, you’re going to have to find somebody else to orbit.” Jealous and callous, and would be sentenced in March 2021 to 25 years to life in prison for the murder. 

Bianca’s death led to the creation of Bianca’s Law, which would compulse larger social media networks to have protocols in place for removing real-life violent content from said platforms. It would also introduce charges for those who knowingly disseminated images of violent crimes with the intention of harassment or of glorification.

From the first refrain of “damn, my neck hurts,” this song has stayed with me. This is a powerful composition, a perfect realization of SKYND’s mission. The band does not mean to glorify these crimes, but to honor the victims and remind one another that the monsters aren’t that far removed from us. The music video is a visual feast, using Devins’ love of anime to create a visual representation of her that appears throughout the video. SKYND’s own makeup, switching out her usual blonde ponytail for a lavender one, with eyes drawn over her own, is a striking appearance for the enigmatic and commanding frontwoman, the eyes especially paying tribute to Bianca’s love of anime and pink.

The work of SKYND may not be for everyone, and that is fine. Those who are able to explore the band’s catalog and the various themes touched on in each case and song will find a connection with what the band describes as The Dark Place, and perhaps learn something about themselves in the process. As the band puts it in the description of the track: 

“He took Bianca’s life because he couldn’t stand that she wanted to live her life the way she did. He took that away from her.

People then posted this horrific photo of her, not even knowing her name. They just shared it, not fully knowing what happened. That’s why it was very important to me to write about her, to put her name out there once again, and put her in the spotlight.”

To learn more about Bianca’s Law, read about it here. Check out the music video for “Bianca Devins” below, and stream/purchase the track on Bandcamp in the widget below the video.

Author’s Note: all images were taken from the music video.

Rave the Reqviem’s “Ex-Eden” Soars Above The Slaughter

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Since their eponymous 2014 debut album, the symphonic electro-metalheads Rave the Reqviem have shaken up the world. Their blend of grand orchestral passages, industrial rhythms and beats, and detuned metal riffage has made for a full, sweeping listening experience, with heavenly hits like “Holy Homicide,” “Crack the Sky,” and “Fvck the Vniverse.” Over the last year, the band has put out five singles, nearly half of the upcoming eleven theses to be unleashed, and now we have it, the band’s fifth studio album, Ex-Eden. While the predecessor, 2020’s Stigmata Itch, may be the strongest of the band’s career, this record, shifting more of the focus to The Sister Superior and her soaring vocal range, is nothing to sneeze at, making the nearly three-year wait between records worth it.

The opening track “(0)485” simply must be their new walk-on song for live concerts, with the slow build and chanted vocals. Before long, the dam breaks and brings Hell with it on “Doombreaker,” with The Prophet employing his screams to great effect before The Sister Superior takes the chorus straight to the heavens. It’s a great way to start the album proper, as what better way to begin the service of The Church ov RTR than by blasting the doors off their hinges? 

“Anti-Savior,” conversely, is a mid-tempo, sludgy number, and sludgy is not a term I would typically assign to a song by Rave the Reqviem. But the blues-inspired riffing in the verses is mechanically clean, while stylistically grimy. The Castlevania-esque bridge sounds like it may be sung by The Mother Superior, whose grandeur and aura are always welcome.

“Ofelia” is the kind of song to put bounce into the mosh pit, as one red-capped frontman of yesteryear once said. It’s energetic electro metal, with chugging riffs and sing-along choruses. Following it is the mega-single “How to Hate Again,” featuring Jake E. of Cyrha and formerly of Amaranthe lending his vocal talents. Between this song and its predecessor, you have two radio-ready singles that would go a long way to get the band some much-deserved attention on, say, an Octane or a Liquid Metal… just putting that out in the Universe, or Vniverse, as it were.

“God, Demon, Machine” is a swaggering, swaying beast of a song, with another great chorus that begs to be sung along to. I thought Stigmata Itch was hooky, but this album is full of them. The orchestral passages bring the pomp and circumstances, but all fall before the vocal prowess of The Sister Superior, who relies on the middle of her vocal range to play this particular wheel of fortune. 

Just as “Riptide” did on the previous record, “Zero Solace” sounds like something that could open a shonen anime, something with big action set pieces and grand adventure. The song finds itself somewhere between blistering power metal a la Sonata Arctica and early 2000s Eurodance with the frenetic synth lines. While it plays with new tools, “Edge of Eden” goes back to basics, with an offbeat drum riff and The Prophet’s signature automaton vocals. Even when The Sister Superior tags in for the chorus, things still sound like classic RTR, as if the band refuses to forget where they came from and what has brought them the success they’ve had in the last decade as a group. This one is for the OGs.

“REQVIEM_05” is completely out of left field as far as the band is concerned. For one, they almost never play in C, never mind that they sound positively massive, even more so than usual. The organ passages add that gothic gravitas, the electronics make it retro-futuristic, and the chorus is sweeping and captivating. It’s a big swing to take, but they’re better for having done so. 

“Exit Babylon” brings things back to familiar territory, with a jaunty organ section to settle us back in from the cathedral cacophony that the previous song gave us. The organ line becomes a synth line in future pre-verse sections, and will soon lodge itself into the listener’s ear for the remainder of their day. The album’s closer “Angry All The Time” sounds like something that belongs in a soundtrack of either BioShock or some other retro-futurist media, with the lyrics doing anything but matching the tone of the music. Might as well send the crowd home happy with a smile and a chuckle as this benediction warps into a radio play from Hell for about 15 seconds before sending the congregation on their merry way.

The band have found new life and a new groove with The Sister Superior at the helm, and Ex-Eden is further proof of just that. Five records and a decade in, this band could be so much bigger, and if they keep crafting albums like this, it can’t be long before the Church of RTR can properly go global.
Ex-Eden is out now via Out of Line Music.