The Horrors - Night Life (2025)

Starting with the dark, ethereal and pulsing Ariel (see the video below), Night Life is another great addition to The Horrors' discography. Beautiful and emotive soundscapes with dark and brooding beats, gothic rock and brooding atmospheres fill the album. Twenty years on, The Horrors continues to produce excellent music. 

Ministry - The Squirrely Years (2025)

What no one thought would ever happen until recently has happened. Ministry have released a new album with reworkings of the much maligned new wave, synth pop era. I always defended With Sympathy as having some great songs and I'm glad that The Squirrely years is now a reality. 

The reworkings don't stray too far from the originals. This is not Ministry turning the old pop songs into a heavy dark industrial metal. But, while being respectful to the original songs, the updated songs have a darker tone, a rougher edge, that the sanitised With Sympathy always lacked, elevating the songs. 

The Squirrely Years is a great collection of new wave, post punk and synth pop songs and it's, certainly, the most surprising and creative album that Al Jourgensen has put out in a long while. 

Now, we need to wait for the new (and possibly final) Ministry album with Paul Barker back in the band. I can't wait to hear what dark alchemy Al and Paul will do. 

Twin Tribes - Pendulum (2024)

The third Twin Tribes album continues their excellent streak of releases. This album combines all the elements that make them such a special band. The darkwave, post-punk and gothic rock influences are all there, perfectly meshed together. A perfect album for fans for The Cure, Depeche Mode and Apoptygma Berzerk. 

The Exploding Boy - Four (2013)

Originating from Sweden The Exploding Boy plays a mix goth pop, new wave and post punk that sounds straight from the 1980s but Four is not pure nostalgia, it actually presents a great collection of tracks. 

It's actually hard to pick highlights as the every song is memorable in its way. The album opener Cracked/Reasons is an excellent  post punk song that has nothing to envy to the greatest tracks and is followed by another assured effort entitled Street Cliche with a more synth oriented sound. From then on the album is quite diverse from The Cure-esque moments to a touch of Killing Joke here and there and a little dose of The Chameleons (one of my favourite all time bands).  

Other highlights include, the catchy and up tempo Dark City (Pt. II), the more straight forward and rockier Shadows, the synth heavy post punk Always and the utterly beautiful Get It Out.  

Overall, Four is a great album that sounds like it was made in the early 1980s and what a joy it is to listen to it now!

Rating: Heavy Rotation