Perturbator ‘Lustful Sacraments’ Review

Perturbator ‘Lustful Sacraments’ Review: darkwave progenitor crafts ominous hook-laden soundscapes. 

“It’s an album about bad habits, dissatisfaction, and addiction. An overall look at how we, as a species, lean towards self-destruction.”

So says James Kent, aka synthwave artist Perturbator, regarding his new release Lustful Sacraments, an album that sees a further maturation and musical evolution of his dark, brooding song craft, fusing the electronic sub-genre with elements of Goth, post-punk and industrial.

Instrumental Reaching Xanadu sounds both foreboding and triumphant, helping to set the tone for what follows, including the title track, a propulsive Goth number in the vein of The Sisters of Mercy.

Excess takes things up a notch: building momentum over time, with barked vocals coalescing around chiming guitars and and ricocheting synth. It’s an evocative wash of sound that conjures images of a car chase in some Blade Runner-esque future.

Secret Devotion (featuring True Body) is a slow burn charmer,  with an elastic snapping beat and wailing vocals. It’s a trance inducing new wave anthem that’s alsoNi the most pop-friendly moment of the album.

Death of the Soul, by contrast, is the album’s most aggressive track, with a warped Krautrock synth riff and unforgiving beat. It’s stark industrial motif recalls early Nine Inch Nails and the likes of Nitzer Ebb and Front 242, deeply cinematic in its noirish evocative mood.

The Other Place is a gorgeous glittering gem; ominous and grandiose, with a serpentine synth line and subterranean bass that create an unrelenting earworm that would be perfect for a horror film or a dance floor.

Kent takes things down a notch on the closing numbers of Lustful Sacraments, offering Goth ambient textures on the appropriately titled Dethroned Under A Funeral Haze, a hypnotic dirge indebted to The Cure with it’s nest of layered sonics.

The final track is another low-key stunner, kicking off with what sounds like the theme from Halloween if it was recorded underwater, before building into immersive, oceanic waves of sound.

Lustful Sacraments is an appropriate sonic canvas to match Kent’s dark ruminations, and makes for appropriate listening in our dystopian present. It’s mournful, yet soothing, a sonic, spectral journey for those in search of restorative, musical brooding.