The name leaped out at me before I even read the bio. In writing on his cut—up audio experiments, conducted from 1959 and into the 1960s, William Burroughs noted correspondence with his own work and the recordings of Latvian parapsychologist Konstantin Raudive, whose colossal tome, ‘Breakthrough’ (which came with a 7” single containing some of those recordings) detailed what he believed were the voices of the dead captured on tape.
It’s an appropriate name for a band influenced by cold wave and post-punk and who cite The Cure, Clan of Xymox, Mission of Burma, Sebadoh, Sisters of Mercy, The Sex Pistols, New Order, Joy Division among their touchstones, not because it bears any resemblance to the otherworldly strangeness of Raudive’s recordings or Burroughs’ disorientating attacks on control, but because the voices of the dead, the bands of the past, ring in every corner of their songs.
‘An Ending’ combines that thumping four-square Craig Adams bass throb defined the early Sisters records, paired with spindly, shoegazey guitars and a baritone vocal that dryly croons ‘1985’.
‘Euphoria Calling’ does that classic darkwave / goth thing of hinting at great joy in the title and the lyrics, while still sounding as bleak as hell. With sweeping synths cut from the same ice as ‘Closer’ slicing against a chiming guitar and solid groove, it lands somewhere close to Rose of Avalanche, but with eyes scanning the horizon and surveying a cinematic vista that nods to late 80s U2.
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The slower-paced dream-pop of ‘Motorway Hymns’ drifts and glides, a head-on collision of ‘Disintegration’ era Cure and ‘Slouvaki’-era Slowdive, while the synth-soaked ‘Torch Song’ bears a strong sonic resemblance to New Order’s ‘Movement’ and shares the same bleak, claustrophonic atmosphere. For all of its referencing, though, ‘Shadow State’ still sounds like a band carving their own niche in the field of post-punk revivalism. It’s savvy stuff. Dark, but savvy.
The Raudive Online
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