Category: post punk

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Golden Hours Shares Broodingly Cinematic “Arctic Desert”

Currently split between Berlin and Brussels, post punk outfit Golden Hours — Hákon Aõalsteinsson, Wim Janssens, Tobias Humble and Rodrigo Funtealba Palavacino — features a collection of seasoned players, who have performed as part of Gang of Four, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Fuzztones, Tricky‘s backing band and a lengthy list of others. 

The post-punk outfit rumbled into the scene with the release of 2023’s self-titled debut. Their sophomore album Beyond Wires was released last week through The Third Sound/Fuzz Club Records and features brooding album track “The Letter,” and the album’s latest single “Arctic Desert.”

“Arctic Desert,” is a slow-burning, cinematic tune that’s one part post-apocalyptic post punk, one-part Morricone-era Spaghetti Western film score anchored by Hákon Aõalsteinsson’s world weary delivery.

“‘Arctic Desert’ leans into our love for French and Italian cinema from the age of lead,” Golden Hours’ Wim Janssens explains. “The beat and opening guitar pull you in before waves of noise flare up, sounding like the house band on Anton LaVey’s ritual ceremonies at his Black House in San Francisco. Hakon’s weary croon invites you for a walk to fully disappear into the ice cold desert night.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 62nd Birthday, Andy Rourke!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 62nd anniversary of the birth of The Smiths’ Andy Rourke.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: clubdrugs Return with Yearning, Club Friendly “Heart 2 Break”

clubdrugs are a Chicago-based, self-described goth pop duo that has developed a reputation and profile both locally and regionally for a genre-defying sound and for captivating live shows.

The duo begin 2026 with their latest single “Heart 2 Break,” an electro goth bop anchored around buzzing and wobbling bass synths, angular bursts of feedback-fueled guitars and thumping, industrial-like beats paired with the duo’s uncanny knack for catchy hooks. Maria dreamily yearning coos ethereally float over the brooding, club friendly production. Much like the previously released “Waiting,” “Heart 2 Break” is a dance song for the lovelorn, the heartbroken and the perpetually unrequited to dance to, in between their tears.

Directed by the Chicago-based duo, the accompanying video for “Heart 2 Break” is a hallucinogen-fueled dream that features the pair performing the song in a studio in front of trippy projections that manages to capture the yearning at the core of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sylvia Black Shares Broodingly Hypnotic “The Snake”

Los Angeles-based multifaceted producer, singer/songwriter, bassist, performer, restless performer and JOVM mainstay Sylvia Black will be releasing her long-awaited new album, the 11-song Shadowtime on Friday, January 16, 2026.

The album reportedly sees Black continuing her long-held approach of songwriting from the bottom up. “I find a beat that I’m in love with and go forward,” Black says. “The bass provides the floor, but as a singer, I’m also coming in with the roof. If you can write a beautiful song with just those two elements, bass notes and the voice, that’s a job well done.”

Written, produced and performed primarily by the JOVM mainstay, the album was crafted with support from longtime mix engineer and creative foil Ruddy Lee Cullers. The album’s material is a haunting exploration of nostalgia and futurism that also sees the Los Angeles-based artist body pushing her sound in new directions by weaving hypnotic rhythms, cinematic layers and raw, visceral emotion, while moving effortlessly from dance floor anthems to atmospheric meditations on love, loss and transcendence. “This album is about finding beauty in ruins,” Black says. “About letting the shadows speak through me. Returning to California brought out the memory and soul of my goth days gone by.” 

Shadowtime will feature the album singles “Talking in Tongues,” and “Long Gone Gardens,” both of which were released last year. The JOVM mainstay begins 2026 with album opening track “The Snake,” a synth-driven song anchored around a motorik groove and industrial thump paired with Black’s beguiling vocal and hypnotic countermelodies. The result is song that sounds much like a sultry, club friendly take on the likes of Suicide that showcases Black’s unerring knack for razor sharp, remarkably catchy hooks.

“The album opens with the fall of mankind or the awakening and the struggle with the birth pangs to traverse into a new paradigm for better or worse. You decide,” Black explains. “Apparently it’s a choose your own adventure and this is the story of those and their choice.”

The accompanying video was shot and edited by Black, and features mind-bending animation that ties into the album’s overall themes and zeitgeist. “A deadline, no plan, a green sheet sloppily tacked to the side of a barn way out in Virginia, and some holiday time with my fussy old laptop,” Black says of the video.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Low Blows Shares Brooding and Forceful “Vacio”

Barcelona-based trio Low Blows — Carlos Vergara (vocals, bass), Andrés Silgado (guitar) and Rubén Carballo (drums) — quickly established a sound that draws from post-punk, industrial, New Wave and darkwave with electric elements and a hint of shoegaze with their full-length debut, 2020’s Cruel.

The Spanish post-punk outfit followed Cruel’s release with a handful of singles, including last year’s Matteo Vallicelli-produced “Go!” The trio also played at OMBRA Festival.

Building upon a growing profile, the trio just released their sophomore, self-titled studio album. The album showcases a new creative phase by the Spanish trio, marked by greater restraint, sonic clarity and artistic cohesion with material that sees the band effortlessly blending post punk and darkwave paired with introspective lyrics. And it’s all anchored by a tension between rawness and sensitivity.

The band says that their sophomore album was conceived as an exercise in reaffirming identity and a point of synthesis between their previous path and a more defined, conscious vision of their artistic present.

The sophomore album’s lead single “Vacio” is a brooding and forceful bit of post-punk featuring an insistent rhythmic pulse and fuzzy guitars paired with an angular, New Order-like bass line, bursts of shimmering synths. While sounding as though it could be a part of the Dedstrange Records catalog — and as though it could have been released during 4AD Records heyday.

“Vacio,” as the band explains works as a statement of intent. “The song explores feelings of absence, disconnection and emotional exhaustion through a direct, no-frills approach. Musically, it leans into a cleaner, more minimalist production with an insistent rhythmic pulse and an enveloping atmosphere that carries the track’s emotional weight,” the band says.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Twilight Sad Share Earnest and Rousingly Anthemic “Designed To Lose”

Scottish post punk outfit The Twilight Sad — currently, vocalist James Graham and multi-instrumentalist Andy MacFarlane — recently announced that their long-awaited sixth album and first in seven years, It’s The Long Goodbye. The album, which will include the previously released “Waiting For The Phone Call” featuring The Cure‘s Robert Smith on guitar, is slated for a March 27, 2026 release through Rock Action Records.

The origins of It’s The Long Goodbye‘s material can be traced back to 2016: Graham and McFarlane returned from the “pinch yourself” high of a tour with The Cure to learn that Graham’s mother had been diagnosed with early onset frontotemporal dementia. Roughly 80% of the album was written as Graham wrestled with the contrast between the joys his life — marriage, parenthood, career — and the bitter cruelty of his mother’s decline, followed by her death.

Over the next seven years, the album’s material was further developed with the London-based MacFarlane stockpiling musical ideas during COVID-19 lockdown, while exchanging words and sounds with Graham. The Cure’s Robert Smith, now a longtime close friend of the duo, provided invaluable input on the album’s demos and contributed guitar on “Waiting For The Phone Call,” mellotron on “Dead Flowers,” and six-string bass on “Back To Fourteen.”

“Then we had to piece together a band,” Graham says, now that the band is centered on him and MacFarlane. Sometimes Arab Strap members David Jeans and Mogwai touring member Alex Mackay were recruited to play drums and bass respectively, with the album produced and recorded by the band’s MacFalane with addition production from Andy Savours at Willesden’s Battery Studios, a location rich in The Cure history.

The end result may arguably be the most personal yet relatable album to date from a band whose portraits of bruised and battered humanity have helped to forge close ties with their audience. “In the past, I’ve used a lot of metaphors within my lyrics,” Graham says, “With this, there’s not as much. The record is heavily influenced by my mental health, grief and loss, and the need to be strong in positions where you’re not feeling it. It’s a very human story, I think – this is just my version of it. I feel that everybody goes through something like this. Everybody loses somebody. Everybody questions life.”

Graham adds, “To know that I’m saying things that connect with other people, that’s such a powerful thing. I want to be a relatable person that talks about things that can happen and give an opportunity for people to go, well you’re not alone. I want people to be able to listen to this record and hear that it comes from a place of raw emotion. The album is an opportunity to share my experience and move forward with my life.”

It’s The Long Goodbye‘s second and latest single “Designed To Lose” is a shimmering, propulsive and rousingly anthemic tune that’s anchored on an earnest reflection on the human condition, hinged on how we often seem doomed to lose in so many of our endeavors, including our capacity to cope with loss.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Albums of the Year 2025

JOVM turns 16 this year. And for first handful of years, my Best of List was an annual tradition until about 2014 or so. Between 2014 and 2020, it became sporadic and then it stopped. I haven’t done one of these in several years. There was a part of me that wondered if it really mattered much. And then life happened. 

So here we are in 2026. And with the year starting in earnest, let’s check out my best of 2025. 

  1. Big Fish Fyra liter stoft
  2. Tan Cologne Unknown Beyond
  3. Moondaddy Dove Tapes
  4. Sessa Pequena Vertigem de Amor
  5. Preservation Brass & Preservation Hall Jazz Band For Fat Man
  6. Silk Daisys S/T
  7. The Circling Sun Orbits
  8. Gabriel da Rosa Cacofonia
  9. Yoo Doo Right, Population II & Nolan Potter Yoo II avec Nolan Potter
  10. bat zoo The Upward Bird EP
  11. Public Circuit Modern Church
  12. L’Eclair Cloud Drifter
  13. Gloin All of your anger is actually shame (and I bet that makes you angry)
  14. CIVIC Chrome Dipped
  15. Population II Maintenant Jamais
  16. White Birches A New Reign
  17. Anish Kumar and Hagop Tchaparian Kino EP
  18. Friendship Commanders BEAR 
  19. The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation
  20. SHOLTO The Sirens
  21. S.C.A.B. Somebody In New York Loves You!
  22. Pierpont & Hegeleson Of Time
  23. RORO and snapir Colors Left
  24. St. Panther Strange World 
  25. Nation of Language Dance Called Memory
  26. Quad90 S/T
  27. Slumbering Sun Starmony
  28. Tunde Adebimpe Thee Black Boltz 
  29. Quad90 S/T
  30. Die Spitz Something To Consume
  31. debdepan LOVERS & OTHERS EP

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The Joy of Violent Movement is a completely independent and completely D.I.Y. media outlet. Over the course of this site’s 15+ year history, I’ve used my fiercely independent stance to cover music with an eclectic and global perspective that a lot of other publications just don’t have — and will likely never have. 

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Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 76th Birthday, Chris Stein!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Blondie co-founder and guitarist Chris Stein’s 76th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 64th Birthday, Robin Guthrie!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie’s 64th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 70th Birthday, Bernard Sumner!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Joy Division and New Order founder Bernard Sumner’s 70th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 70th Birthday, Andy Gill!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 70th anniversary of the birth of Gang of Four’s Andy Gill.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 71st Birthday, Annie Lennox!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Annie Lennox’s 71st birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sunset Images Shares Sprawling and Brooding “El Tiempo Oscila y Muere al Incio (Tommy)”

With the release of their debut album, 2021’s Traumatismo Nacional and 2024’s NADA/CERO/INFINITO EP, Sunset Images, led by Mexico City-based singer/songwriter, musician and creative mastermind Samuel Osorio has firmly established a layered soundscape of dissonance, cathartic release and emotional depth that draws from krautrock, shoegaze and punk. Thematically Traumatismo Nacional was a scathing indictment on violence, racism and misogyny while NADA/CERO/INFINITO explored loneliness, anger and desperation, laying bare the emotional devastation of modern life.

The project has built a reputation for intense live performances while sharing stages with the likes of Mogwai, Godflesh, Boris, The Raveonettes, Acid Mothers Temple, Gnod, HIDE, RAKTA, Vinnum Sabbathi and more.

Eventually, they caught the attention of Dedstrange Records, who signed the Mexican project and will be releasing their highly anticipated sophomore album Oscilador on January 23, 2026. Reportedly, the album sonically is a reflection of the perpetual cycles that rules our world — birth, decay, chaos and resolution, fueled by the collision of fractured synths, pulsating vocals, primitive drum beats and feedback-drenched guitars. The result is a soundscape that’s hypnotic, disorientating and irresistible.

Oscilador‘s second and latest single “El Tiempo Oscila y Muere Al Incio (Tommy)” is a sprawling motorik dirge with a cinematic quality that’s one-part krautrock, one-part shoegaze, one-part noise featuring a throbbing, distortion pedaled bass line, bursts of swirling feedback-drenched guitar guitars, a relentless backbeat paired with Osorio’s hauntingly spectral vocal. The result is a song that’s intense yet with an almost fanatical attention to precision.

Sonically reminding me a bit of the likes of Yoo Doo Right JJUUJJUU and others, the song as Osorio explains explores “humanity’s self-destruction,” “conjuring visions of a world ravaged by toxic masculinity and patriarchy. This is a song about the abyss that awaits, how we cannot escape the passage of time & how it will ultimately consume us.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Italy’s Coldtrace Shares Broodingly Atmospheric “Reasons 1”

Coldtrace is a mysterious and emerging Italian post punk band, who released their debut EP, Shadows last month.

Shadows EP‘s latest single “Reasons 1” is a brooding bit of post punk, featuring angular and propulsive bass line, relentless four-on-the-floor, shimmering, bursts of reverb-soaked guitars paired with a dramatic baritone vocal. While showcasing the band’s ability to pair chilly atmospherics with razor sharp hooks, “Reasons 1” seemingly channels the likes of Cocteau Twins, Molchat Doma and others.