Freak Genes Delirik

Released
6th September 2024
Label 
Feel It Records
Format

12 Inch

Black

£20.00

Freak Genes return with their sixth album, Delirik, as surging synths and agitated, percussive electronics conjure a mercurial reverie, equal parts anguish and euphoria, exploring the emerging phases of grief.

Comprising English duo Charlie Murphy and Andrew Anderson, the band’s last album, 2022’s Hologram, was heavily influenced by the death of Murphy’s mum.  Delirik, a term that speaks to a form of emotional delirium, builds on this theme as it maps the often disorientating, unsettling evolution of grief once the immediate shock has subsided.

And it is this sense of feverish, oscillating disorientation that Delirik so expertly evokes.  Beneath the brightly futuristic sheen seethes ominously dystopian synth punk that writhes and mutates in unexpected directions, the end destination rarely what might have at first been anticipated.  Waves of melancholic melody, darkly enticing choruses, and eruptions of thumping dance beats propel this restless, relentless shape shifting.  Meanwhile, strident semi-shouted vocals, which also segue into passages of more reserved introspection, inject a sense of defiant hope to pierce the shroud of loss and remembrance.

The very morphology of Delirik seems to, at least partly, reconstitute itself on each visit.  Differing elements come to the fore, the overarching atmosphere unchanged yet its underlying dynamics constantly reformulating.  From the contagiously pounding Deam Night to the coldly entrancing Closer, and from the darkly shuddering Head Of The Snake to the languorously infectious It Can’t Be True, it is quite the trip.

—Foundation Vinyl