‘The emergency cannot be identified until it is taking place and reflected in your eyes, The peril is presented face-to-face, You know your own lies’ (No Crisis Goes To Waste)

We often speak of disasters as if they are exceptional moments. In reality, they – and the frequently exploitative responses to them – are often rooted in long entrenched socio-economic inequalities.  The notion of the unforeseeable tragedy becomes society’s defence mechanism to absolve itself from responsibility.  Our refusal to confront these realities, from climate catastrophe to the surveillance state, forms the bleakly dystopian backdrop to Iris Paralysis’ fourth album, Extinguish The Sun.

It sees the Bielefeld / London synth duo, featuring Tobo Schazmann on electronics and Marco Palumbo (Trenchkoat / Zuletzt) on vocals, continue to hone their fusion of post-punk and dark wave.  It also sees the band lean more assuredly into their 1980s’ new wave influences, introducing a more pronounced sense of drama to their aesthetic.

The synths coldly pulse with a quivering elasticity underpinned by the crisply resonant, motorik percussion.  Meanwhile, the gothically drawled, often layered vocals survey a world knowingly suffocating itself with the detached disdain and darkly evocative imagery of one who long ago lost hope in humanity’s potential for redemption.

The slyly enticing invitation of Well-Rehearsed Future and the pulsating Inferiority Complex set the tone for the album, a restless joust between emotions of disenchanted resignation and insidiously infectious songcraft.  It is one effortlessly fermented by the fevered oscillations of No Crisis Goes To Waste and Retroflex View, before the tensely throbbing Eels Of Deceit.