Slow Pulse is a partnership Nic Nadeau of the early-4AD-inspired goth band Single Lash and Justin Sweat whose solo project Xander Harris exists somewhere between the discotheque floor and the dollar theater John Carpenter screening. The Austin based duo have assembled a genre-melding EP of industrial-tinged synth tunes that comes out April 15th on Mirror Universe. There’s an intuitive chemistry between Nadeau and Sweat that’s accesible on the surface, and cavernous underneath; it’s what would happen if Depeche Mode were inspired by hyper-specific knowledge 80’s horror soundtracks and classical mythology (in Demiurge, Nadeau drops a reference Old Testament Gnostic Deity Yaltabaoth, just to give you an idea). There’s an interesting juxtaposition in production that happens between the dusty whirring of Nadeau’s vox-guitar combination and Sweatt’s tactile, laser-cut beats. Each track usher the listener into an eerie industrial rave-environment chilly with the air of detached shoegaze melancholia. Nadeau’s a crooner in the vein of Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch and has an infatuation with classic gothic themes of mutilation and terror commingled with heartache. The prime example of their sonic palette is Vice Grip featuring beat sharp enough to seem topographical, a detuned, decaying guitar line, and a chorus that chants, “ Like being gripped in a vice/putting screws to the eyes.” The result is a collision of disparate eras: an Oedipal image of gory eye sockets, a fixation of 80’s horror movie soundtracks, and a projection into a futuristic industrial dystopia.

Preorder it here