The sonic palette is the title. Every sound on the album is a synthetic signal: the corrupted landscape and allocations of Mindshares, the siren calls of Decimator, the existential tuning-in of Sci-Fi Radio, the rising frequencies of Waking Alive. When Tom Gorton sings about synthetic signals, the band is literally producing them. The instrumentation and energy sit at the intersection of LCD Soundsystem’s live-band physicality, TV on the Radio’s soulful yearning, and The Prodigy’s sonic intensity.
Act I dissolves the self. Mindshares names the enemy (attention hijacked, thoughts unable to transmit). Decimator delivers the physical cost. Sci-Fi Radio searches for signals. Die This Way buries the band motto in the album’s darkest moment. Act II turns outward: surveillance, gaslight, self-inflicted gravity wells. Three tracks with no warmth. Act III rebuilds. Anthem claims fire. Waking Alive answers the album’s central question (“are we gonna die this way?”) with “our fire is raging away.” Thunderbolt grounds human connection through a lone gas station interaction. Queens Kill closes with demands for personal and power structure changes.
The title works three ways. The signals are synthetic (manufactured by systems built to hijack attention). The instruments are synthetic (the palette is the concept). And the album synthesizes: it processes corrupted input and outputs something clarified. Two motifs (signal and fire) thread through all 11 tracks, transforming from broken/destructive to clarified/sustaining across three acts. The harmonic journey never resolves back to where it started, the album refuses to retreat.
Out July 31, 2026 on The Unknown International.
