Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
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Explore our blogs to read reviews, news, and more on synthwave. Heavy Blog is a blog dedicated to heavy music and all its friends, featuring metal news, reviews, and other nincompoopery.
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
We have a special edition of Wave // Breaker for you this time. It’s sort of sad that it’s a special edition because what makes it special is that I’ve found not one, not two, but three electronic albums to love this month. It’s sad because I’d like for this to be a more frequent occasion. I’m not sure it’s entirely the genre’s fault; it’s easy to jump to conclusions and grand narrative about “the death of synthwave” or, even more gross and crude, the “template nature of most electronic music”. But the truth is, I don’t have the same mechanisms in place to watch and stay attention to electron ..read more
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
Back in 2019, I mentioned the name Memorex Memories several times. The project’s Pictures of Purple Skies came to me at a time in my life that involved heavy travel and was the perfect soundtrack to the despondency that comes with that and which vapor/synth wave channel so well. So when The Life of Riley was released, I was ecstatic. But little did I know that Riley (as we are heretofore calling the album in this post) was something much different than Pictures of Purple Skies, a brighter album yes but one which didn’t simply turn the light on higher but also changed the hues and palette in w ..read more
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
Genre Genesis is our monthly column dedicated to the hardworking and endlessly patient partners of Heavy Blog editors and writers, who are, shall we say, not nearly as invested in heavier music as we tend to be. We offer them a track from an artist we’re currently enjoying and ask them for both their reactions and to take their best guess at what “genre” of heavy music it falls into. It’s all in good fun and a necessary reminder to not take ourselves too seriously.
You didn’t think we were leaving this gold mine of a column behind in Heavy Blog 3.0, did you? Of course not! We took a little ti ..read more
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
I’ve said it before on the blog but my relationship with synthwave (or just “dance music”, as you’ll see it described in the interview below) has been tense at best. From its problematic, and often just plain repetitive and cliche themes, through the musical rut the genre has been for the last few years, I’ve been looking for more and more deviants from the norm to satisfy my neon cravings. People like SurgeryHead, Micronode, and, prominently, Dan Terminus.
As far as monstrous beats, bold science fiction visions, and just an overall disregard for how the genre “should” sound, Dan Terminus has ..read more
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
In 2017, ZETA absolutely blew everyone at the blog away with their self-titled, debut release. Composed of Daniel Tompkins (TesseracT), producer Katie Jackson, and Paul Ortiz (Chimp Spanner), the project channeled synthwave, indie-pop, EDM, and more into one cyberpunk infused series of absolute bangers. The project has since been silent (although more things are coming, see below!) but Katie Jackson has recently started posting more tracks under the moniker Static Angel. As you can probably tell from the tracks below, this project is a lot more focused on techno, EDM, and other electronic sce ..read more
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
As synthwave hit its stride over the past few years, it’s largely been a flood of the club-friendly, dancy variety. Acts like GosT, Carpenter Brut, Com Truise, Dan Terminus, and many, many others have carried the mantle, populating the scene with producers who fit a generally homogenous archetype. Somewhere along the way, the “band” approach to this style got left in the dust. It’s as if synth rock has been erased from possibility. It’s peculiar that the influence of older groups like Goblin or Trans Am haven’t seeped into the bigger synthwave hivemind, even as prog and post rock are more wid ..read more
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
It’s pretty amazing how quickly quarantine and lockdown have become sanitzed. There are already (and have been for a few weeks) listicles and “self help” posts about living your best quarantine and how to, for some reason, continue to be productive even as the fabrics of our society unravel. That’s why it was so refreshing to watch Sail‘s video for “Mannequin”, their new single. They asked some of their friends to film themselves for the video and while that idea in and of itself is not that original, the end result is. Instead of a sanitized, romanticized vision of life at home, the vi ..read more
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
One of the main phenomena that disgruntled cultural history majors will write their essays about in the future is the rise to fame of synthwave. Inside those articles you’ll probably find a paragraph, or even a full chapter, on the importance of the appeal of synthwave to metalheads. It’s not that hard to explain, to be honest: metal and its aesthetic is an intrinsic part of the 80’s and, as a genre which calls back to that period, synthwave borrowed a lot of that aesthetic into its own. That goes beyond “just” clothes, album covers, or overall vibes and into the music itself; plenty of synth ..read more
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
It is time to get dark, my friends. I’ve been hankering for a darksynth album for a while now, surrounded as I am by (excellent) chromatic and bright electronic albums these past few weeks (Savant, City Girl, Luo and more). Enter Deadlife and his excellent City of Eternal Rain, releasing tomorrow, and its city-drenched, future-forward tones and textures. Like all good darksynth albums, City of Eternal Rain is driven first and foremost by a solid, constant, and engrossing beat. It is the listener’s first leg on the journey they are set to embark and Deadlife knows this very well; the album is ..read more
Heavy Blog Is Heavy » Synthwave
1y ago
This isn’t the first time we’ve written to you about dark synthwave weirdo SurgeryHead and for very good reason. There aren’t enough artists out there ready to take their synths, bass, and overall level of filth and noir to the levels I desire. Sure, there’s Carpenter Brut but, even if you look past all the off putting nonsense with his aesthetic, how many times can you really listen to Trilogy? I mean, a lot. But at some point it gets dull and Leather Teeth, while good, doesn’t really hit the same way. The other artists who operate in these dark spaces don’t really cut it for me and many jus ..read more