I absolutely bloody loved Priest’s last album ,2022’s Body Machine. It’s mix of cheesy 80’s synthwave and gothic noir was right up my neon lit alley. It featured in my top ten of the year and fuelled many a late night drive and panting cardio sesh.
When “Dark Pulse” landed with a skid in my inbox a week or two ago I eyed it with trepidation. Was it gonna let me down? Are Priest one of those bands who deliver an album that grabs me by the short and curlies and swings me a round one year only for them to either fall off a cliff creatively or more often than not my tastes and personal circumstances change so much that I end up shrugging and waltzing off to some new electro come lately.
Well Dark Pulse carries on where its predecessor finished – fun kitsch danceable synthwave to bop round your spiked handbag to – under a bridge in Germany if you want. But …… something seems to have changed – I am gonna say to Salt, Mercury and Sulfur who make up the group – it’s you NOT ME!
The opening tracks take me back two years and I am grinning and popping off finger guns to Burning Love with its ZX spectrum chop Yee Arr Kungfu style effects. Curt Smith style vocals and a whip crack chorus and a pulsating camp Eurodance beat I am all over this like sweat over a pleather codpiece. “Black Venom” that follows is pulsating sample laden dark bopper that sits wonderfully alongside Hell Awaits and Ghost Writer from the last album whilst “Demon’s Call” is an 80’s throwback that surely should exist on VHS with a young Dolph Lungdren fighting a beleaguered Anthony Michael Hall for Molly Ringwald’s bionic hand. It’s kinda cool but I feel some doubt seep in the cracks in my pleather/silver plated armour.
Hold up! What the actual fuck! “Dungeon Dance” sounds like something off Flight of the Conchords. This would slot right between Hiphopoptamus and Business Time.
I was listening to this album in the car yesterday and the 6-year old kid I was driving with his family threw up all over my car when this track was on. I am not saying this was the cause – but I am not saying it wasn’t! It just sounds daft.
“Golden Gate” starts with an intro that reminds me of the first time I played on a mate’s keyboard – “Ooh what does Timpani” sound like? Ha this is funny. This is a huge backwards step for Priest. DO they have kids who they have allowed to “experiment” with My First Bontempi (TM)?
“Just A Game” has a got a funky Nitzer Ebb style electro industrial groove within it but again Priest have thrown too many pointless bells and whistles over the top and it loses its darkness and bite. “Your Devil” has no pretence at darkness and is a fun slice of hi-NRG synthpop with a catchy hook that had me moving a little.
What follows – “Enter Your Body” see’s Priest stick Depeche Mode and Blancmange in a blender which is unfortunately spoiled again with cheap sounding synth voices – I am now feeling personally attacked.
The bassline that runs through “ A Demonic Game” is ripped straight from an 80’s new wave track that is tantalisingly trapped in my cerebellum and the schtick of fluffy pop sung about possession and “darkness” has worn as thin on me as their previous bands “Satanic BOC” nonsense.
By the time “Chaos Reigns” mopes in a lacklustre fashion out of my speakers I am starting to doubt my love affair with Body Machine. A quick revisit makes me realise that this is one of the bands that my head and heart only have room for one album.
Two great tracks, one fun bop then a lot of guff.
(3/10 Matt Mason)
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