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German label Dependent, dropped the new Fïx8:Sëd8 album Octogram, in the month of October, which seems oddly apt. The guys from Wiesbaden, have really put a lot of thought and heart into Octogram, with there being eight tracks, which all have a running time of approximately eight minutes each. Further more, each track has the last words of a imprisoned person, about to receive the ultimate penalty of death.

“The Unborn” is your introduction to the concept of last words integrated into music. There is a undeniable truth is the fact that ‘everybody dies,’ but not everybody gets to choose when, The synths are sublime at times, almost serene in acceptance of the awaited fate, though there is a darkness within and it accented with the high pitch electronic feedback, breaking into your conscious.

There are probably no more powerful words than ‘I don’t want to go,’ when you know they were the last utterances from a human, who was euthanised, and “New Eden” is electronically beautiful, compared to the voice of this woman. The synths simply sparkle like stars in the sky, that will never be seen again and there is an urgency, with the metallic vocals that morph at will into otherworldly singing.

“Darkness Visible” has a delicate tone, carried with the almost oriental lines that ring out making me think of Depeche Mode, broken by the guttural vocals. It sails on mercurial synths. There feels like a righteous reign of fire just waiting to break loose in “Oathbreaker,” as if the track is on the knife’s edge, waiting to break open, throbbing and building in tension. The beats become heavier and evolves into semi rhythmic noise.

There is a point in Octogram where you begin to wonder if humanity has the right to snuff out the life of another, as you run the gamut of emotions where the music and vocals sometimes builds on the psychological state and in other tracks, can almost be diametrically opposite. The music, as always, from Fïx8:Sëd8 is really breath-taking, putting forth creations that are not just danceable, but also take you from your safe place and make your heart beat just a bit faster.

Octagram | FIX8:SED8

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Dependent – SPKR.store

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It is Onyx’s great pleasure to premiere the new single from Melbourne’s goth-tastic duo, Velatine. “We’re Not Suburban” is Holly Purnell’s second single with the band, after joining fellow musician and producer Loki Lockwood, on the darkwave journey to create fabulous songs, and it comes out on the label Spooky Records.

Let the night sweep you away into its dark embrace, as the synths sensuously ask for surrender, and the sirens of emergency services, reminds us the city after sunset it full of life. Purnell’s singing is unhurried and so easy on the ears, as she elucidates about how being suburban can be perceived as being suffocating and ‘normal’, something artistic types are constantly at war with. At times, the synths caress the vocals, before becoming spikey. You can hear Lockwood’s vocals, deep and in unison with Purnell, as the track goes on and the sirens become increasingly intrusive.

Lockwood told me the track is autobiographical, until the lines ‘Despite the odds, The un-dead, you’re not, So be a little reckless, And make the life you’ve got,’ which is more of an ethos that many of us should take note of for ourselves. Velatine have made a lush video, walking and driving through those same suburban streets, so you can see those two beautiful people haunting your screen. The song itself is slightly reminiscent of that Portishead style, and I think Holly’s vocals are perfect. I can’t wait to hear go from strength to strength as she proceeds. “We’re Not Suburban” is yet another showcase of Lockwood’s composition mastery and proving Velatine don’t care to be run of the mill, because boring is for other people.

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Have you people in your life, where every time you interact with them, you feel flat, tired and just plain drained? You could be dealing with “Emotional Vampires,” a serious parasite and also the title to the latest single from Toronto’s Spectral Eyes. Rosie Cochrane, the gothic soul behind Spectral Eyes, has described the single as a cross between Kate Bush and Death Grips….. feeling the intrigue yet?!

Cochrane’s vocals waver between spoken word and sickly imploring, for she inhabits the psyche of an anima sucking being, drawing you down into her vortex of selfishness and self obsession. There are erratic rhythms, bleeping electronics and synths that all come together, and when that voice soars, looped into singing in harmony, the track takes on a whole new level of wow. The last line really hits home. with the vampire finally telling it’s victim, ‘Don’t tell me I can’t have it all‘.

“Emotional Vampires” is quite experimental in many ways, using tone and pitch of the vocals to great emphasis of the character, as well as glitchy beats giving a sense of instability. It is a bit groovy, a bit dark and a lot of spectacular. So, remember when out in the big, bad world, use your Spectral Eyes, and do not let the “Emotional Vampires” bite.

Emotional Vampires | Spectral Eyes

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Let’s go back to January of this year and visit an EP from Copenhagen’s Sanity Overdrive called god.clear (). The man behind this project is Paweł Mielcarek (Anthropoid Idol, ex-Haemorrhagic Diarrhea), and he meshes dark synthwave with nihilistic industrial.

We kick off with the short lived intro “Invocatio,” which leads into “L’autoportrait binaire,” filled with the drone of an electric guitar, the focal piece, while the synths is the softer foil, making the grinding guitar even more aggressive as it gathers speed.

The electronic knocking rhythm is soon joined by the guitar in “Nur-noch-leben,” building up the growing suspense. The air is becoming thick with the ever pervading pressure of the pounding beats and driving guitar.

The final track is the galvanic “Black Screen,” as the guitar buzzes angrily with the pounding beat. It is a cohesive explosive attack from a well oiled machine, asserting its dominance, thundering in fury, with the ominous synths raising the foreboding portent of something this way coming.

There is a bleakness to the music that the industrial aspect feeds into and the synthwave is often used as the emotive over tones, seeking to coat each track in variants of darkness. Sanity Overdrive’s gods.clear() EP is an abrasive sonic journey.

gods.clear() | Sanity Overdrive

Sanity Overdrive (@sanityoverdrive.bsky.social) — Bluesky

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Melbourne’s Velatine are back with a new single, as well as a new singer. Loki Lockwood dropped the single “Oh See Me, The Siren,” with Holly Purnell debuting as the vocalist.

‘I love coats, leather coats, biker jackets, military coats, I’m obsessed. So I’m down the local thrift shop and trying on some women’s furs [love them too]. But I never seem to find the right one but I try. I put one on, the sleeves are too short, I push them up and I hear someone say ‘looks cool’. I turn around and I’m looking at this striking woman who says to me ‘you’re looking for a singer aren’t you’? ‘How do you know’? I replied.  ‘I’ve seen your ad and I’ve been thinking about it’. Why hasn’t she I think? She looks the part so I ask. I get the ‘not sure whether I’m good enough or my voice is right’. ‘Well if you don’t try you’ll forever wonder’ I say.’ – Loki Lockwood

In the video, our siren Holly is saturated in deep red tones, and somewhere in the back of my mind, there is a knocking. Something familiar and then it hits me. She reminds me of a young Shirley Manson and not just vocally. The attitude is sassy and she is not going to put up with anyone’s preconceptions. In that vein, the music is equal parts sneering nonchalance and peerless seduction, for this composition created by Lockwood.

Lockwood has used synths in the chorus in such a way that heightens the feeling of suffocation and in his chameleon way, he has the ability to fluidly change from gothic rock to a more electronic sound, and everything in between, without a second thought, which keeps everything fresh. It seems Velatine might have found their gothic goddess in Holly and this means there are exciting things in the works. Find yourself drawn to “Oh See Me, The Siren,” because no one can resist creatures of the night.

Oh See Me – The Siren | Velatine

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– VELATINE – Gothic | Darkwave

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“Cold Heart” is the debut single from Vox Umbra, a darkwave project started in 2025 by Tiffany in Seattle, USA and Florian from Amiens, France. A song for those who want to lose themselves in an ancient forest and live with the sprites, for the world of men can be cruel.

Tiffany’s vocals are the first to gift our ears, with a lilting quality that adds to the romantic ambient quality of the music. Like in a dream, Florian chimes in with the vocalised lament of the psychological damage done. Both singers are mesmerising in the way they compliment each other.

The accompanying video is beautifully made with pagan/wiccan overtones. The feminine is delicate and otherworldly, while the masculine is more forceful, yet questioning, but what ever is happening, you are focused utterly on the singers of Vox Umbra. The music itself is simply there floating in the background for atmosphere. The debut “Cold Heart” is a magical darkwave introduction to Vox Umbra.

Cold Heart (Single) | Vox Umbra

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𝐕𝐎𝐗 𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐑𝐀 (@voxumbramusic) • Instagram photos and videos

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When you are a band who is all about horror in real life and movies, the Halloween season is very important. Who Saw Her Die? (WSHD?) get very excited around this time, gracing us with their joy of all stories gruesome. Recently they released the Mothman EP, which you should check out, but they have dropped the fresh corpse of Dead or Alive’s track “Something In My House.”

This is not the disco version. It has been pared down to its bones and rebuilt like Frankenstein’s monster. It rumbles and groans, with the slow stalking beat and slightly lisped growled vocals of a broken and murderous heart. The synths add to the ghostly atmosphere.

A curse on the houses of Stock, Aitken and Waterman for their perversion of Dead Or Alive, who originally started off as the far more gothic Nightmares In Wax, but I will concede that without them, we might never had “You Spin Me,” (which I hated for several decades after spinning it every Friday night for two years) and “Something in My House.” The WSHD? cover is so different and yet so much in the vein of tongue in cheek that it was always was meant to be taken for. Hello? Police? There is “Something in My House” and it is all the fault of Who Saw Her Die?!

Harbinger (Mothman) | Who Saw Her Die?

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Portland’s Ceremony Shadows released the single “Future Past Collapse.” in September. This diverse trio, made up of musician/composer Timo Kissel, with vocalists/lyricists Anastasia Darkwater and Jakub Jerzy, and for the single, they are joined by Jana Cushman (Darkswoon) and Annalisa Rose (Glori) vocally.

Jerzy’s vocals are the anchor in the human world, deep and unfazed by the electronics, while the backing singing is so precise and together, it almost seems unreal, as if they could be the computer code, enticing you in with their glossy cadence, All is enhanced by the dreamy synths, which could belong to a much more ‘innocent’ era.

The band has said that “Future Past Collapse” was written about how AI could soon rewrite what it means to be a human, where talent and artistic ability no longer will be required for mass production, leaving us longing for the days of old. Indeed, this track feels like a link between when we were the masters of our tech and the onset of AI controlling what we hear and see, however, for now you can revel in the non artificial intelligence of Ceremony Shadows.

Future Past Collapse | Ceremony Shadows

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Ceremony Shadows

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Ronny Flissundet and Kristian Liljan dropped their EP Dancing Drone back in June, through their project Rule of Two. Based in the capital of Norway, this duo blend electronics with whatever moody genre takes their fancy and due to being rather prolific, in October they released the single “Cloud Nine.”

There is something classically 80s about the synths that makes you think of groups like Depeche Mode and Erasure. Maybe it is the play of dark notes with the lighter ones, or maybe the graceful vocals that intertwine in delightful harmony

“Cloud Nine” is about taking your life into your own hands. Stop waiting for the right time and permission to live in the moment because in the end, all those moments are fleeting. It is an important message that most of us don’t understand until we reach a certain age. The music is really glorious in the way it soars, with a hint of regret, but more so a joyous refrain of freedom. Also, give Rule of Two’s music video’s a look, reminiscent in style of another Norwegian band, a-ha.

Cloud Nine | Rule Of Two

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NØIR and Silver Walks may not have been heard from recently, but that does not mean that they have not been busy. Athan Maroulis (NØIR, Spahn Ranch, Black Tape For A Blue Girl) and Daniel McCullough (Silver Walks) have collaborated again, recording a cover of “Nothing Stays” by Cyberaktif, and originally released on the Wax Trax! label.

There is a sacred reverence almost for this track. The reflective vocals bear a lament about how everything must change, an acknowledgement of time marching on. Maroulis’ unmistakeable vocals, with Veil’s delicious backing singing are in perfect sync with the electronics, that blink away, filling all the dark spaces, which leaves you nearly breathless in the utter beauty of “Nothing Stays.”

Maroulis laid down the vocals in New York, and the programming in Lancaster PA, by McCullough, also adding backing vocals from Valentina Veil (VV & the Void) recorded in Berlin, mixed in LA by Dan Evans (Die Warzau) and and mastered by Eric Oehler (KLACK) in Madison, WI.

The rest of the EP contains remixes from Luna of S Y Z Y G Y X, David Dutton of genCAB and Oehler of KLACK, with each surprising you with how different all three tracks truly are. NØIR vs Silver Walks’ cover version, eerily still has that Skinny Puppy sound that remind you that Cevin Key and Dwayne Goettel were in Cyberaktif, along with Bill Leeb of Frontline Assembly. This is so close to perfection.

Nothing Stays | NOIR

Nothing Stays | silver walks

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silver walks – emotional electronics

NOIR (@noir_nyc_official) • Instagram photos and videos

NOIR – Metropolis Records

https://metropolis-records.com/artist/noir