Anti-Flag – 20/20 Vision

Good punk rock with a proper average track length below three minutes. And just like any politically charged punk rock in 2020 it’s an all around anti-Trump statement. Coming from Anti-Flag who self-admittedly “have actively chosen to not attack presidents directly”. It’s another record in the long list of such albums spanning now across so many different genres.

Phase Fatale – Scanning Backwards

It sounds like a classic industrial-EBM album from many years ago getting a remaster in 2020 with a techno heart. Sounds like an abandoned factory, heavy beats, greasy and steamy noises, distorted synths, slow marching rhythms. It is something not new but refreshing to hear. This could only possibly come from Berlin, has a cosy home at Ostgut Ton.

Recondite – Dwell

Techno and house in its rhythms but with a slow tempo and with lots of atmospheric sounds. Beautiful music, too, in a blue and moody sense.

When you put on noise cancelling headphones and listen to this in the middle of a busy city it’s like a movie about a civilization in decay and the meaninglessness of everyday life. The scene when you’re watching them run around in their little useless lives and you already know but they don’t that their fraglie mudball planet is on an all-erasing collision course with a huge asteroid. Could be a soundtrack to Melancholia.

Okandi – Devil I Know

It’s just a single track but an important return of O. Children’s singer as a solo effort. It’s hard to say from this one song what to expect from him next, but most probably will keep the direction where his band was heading with goth moody ballads.

In 2010 I was overwhelmed to see a bunch of newcomer goth bands who could pour fresh blood in the veins of this genre that just keeps coming and going with a heartbeat that does one forceful thump once every five to ten years. In ’10 I stumbled upon Led Er Est who made a debut the year before, then O. Children’s first record came out this year, and these two etched a mental note to the start of the decade for me. So, this is why I’m really happy to see something new again from this Okandi guy.