I turned you into a destroyer…
For those that like their electronic music painted in darker hues, the ever-reliable Dicepeople are back with a selection of raw darkwave offerings care of the Destroyed EP.
Consisting of Matt Brock (musician, songwriter and producer) and Zmora (vocalist), Dicepeople have dabbled in a broad range of genres, including synth-pop, EBM and post-rock. Their 2018 album, One From Many (see The Electricity Club review previously) took the outfit into darker landscapes, one filled with sinister synths and sombre beats.
Earlier this year, Dicepeople conjured up the Destroyer EP (not to be confused with the TR/ST album(s)) which slotted into that darker direction effortlessly. The Destroyed EP is a companion release which brings together some remixes and reimagining of the previous outing’s tracks.
The cover, with a be-masked Zmora, seems eerily prescient of the current pandemic that 2020 seems emersed in. In many ways, the dark explorations that Dicepeople have dreamt up here seem also to be appropriate to the fear and uncertainty currently running through everyday life.
As a track, the original take on ‘Destroyer’ had a relentless, fractured drive to it. The frenetic rhythms and raw percussion provided a gritty foundation for Zmora’s stark vocal delivery (“Betrayer of trust/Bringer of lies”). Under the remix talents of Matt Hart here, the song has its edges filed off to some extent, but the composition still retains a sinister aspect with its pulsating synths.
‘Siren Song’, originally a metallic-flavoured reverie, plays out here as a bolder, cinematic flavour of industrial angst; the Deflexity remix giving the composition a whispery, brooding workover.
The previous Destroyer EP boasted the tight electropop workout of ‘Rollercoaster’. Here, that track is transformed into the throbbing beats of ‘She Rides’.
Meanwhile, ‘Caged’ is a starker, spikier affair with raw percussive fills, calling to mind the Mira Aroyo outings on Ladytron compositions.
Alongside the feverish ‘Dream After Dream’ and the chugging mechanism of distortion that forms ‘Destroyed’, the tracks on this EP come across like timely wasteland anthems. If you like your electronic music to draw from sleazy synth workouts, then Destroyed will certainly deliver.
Destroyed is out now on the Syndicol label.
https://dicepeople.bandcamp.com/album/destroyed-ep
https://dicepeople.bandcamp.com/album/destroyer-ep
