‘I’m the never ever learnt lesson, I’m the freedom that creates your inner prison, I’m the reason, the desire, the demon, It’s too late, too late, to stop me now’ (Embodiment Of Denial)

Berlin’s Cosey Mueller returns with her third full-length and follow up to 2024’s Softcore.  Embodiment Of Denial continues to hone her darkly intoxicating blend of synth fuelled post-punk melodies and pounding dance beats, one that is intertwined with pulsing melodic motifs and swells of languid guitar.

The coldly elastic synths and pneumatic percussion, not forgetting the strangely infectious, skittering cow bell, of the title track kick off proceedings with an ominous sense of foreboding, evoking that moment on the dance floor when frivolity ends and the hard yards begin.  The groove laden Nimm Mich (Take Me) and Der Politiker (The Politician) are utterly contagious floor fillers in the classic Cosey mould, while the jarring gyrations of Neue Ungemütlichkeit (New Discomfort) and the deadpan insouciance of Verlogen (Deceitful) work their own beguiling spells.

Cosey’s vocals continue to revel in their own austere restraint, equal parts whispered warning and uplifting invitation.  Insidious repetition and spectral urgings conjure an atmosphere of ambiguous, shapeshifting unease.  She slips seamlessly between German and English as she unpicks the lies (those we tell ourselves and those close to us) and hypocrisy (in the guise of political and media narratives), that shape our lives.