Bleep

90s aesthetics are updated for Millenial problems on this debut LP from Seattle group NEWAXEYES. There’s a distinct Matrix/X-Files/early internet-age paranoia to Black Fax, but track titles like ‘Snowden’ should signpost that this is very much a record of the here and now. Indeed, the group’s mutant mix of doom metal, dark electronica and post-rock is evocative of that most 90s of groups Nine Inch Nails, as well as containing more oblique references to the neurosis that afflicted groups like Massive Attack and Portishead. Black Fax is a very powerful album, but also one with moments of beauty - just check Hanna Benn’s disintegrating drones on ‘At Blood’s’.