3 out of 5

Label: self-released

Produced by: Lochie Noble

Technology is on our minds. It’s not a new topic – of course not – but the speed of change in that industry, and the accessibility of that change is greater than ever before, both of those factors increasing seemingly exponentially, such that by the time people are teenagers, they are seeing several seismic shifts in the tech landscape. My parents – not spring chickens – have opinions on AI that don’t just feel like news talking points, and hopefully AI will be a dated reference by the time you read this.

But, again, it’s not a new topic, and while the ways we can talk about it have gotten more nuanced, if we’re approaching it from a position of skepticism or paranoia, it’s often the same overall conversation: we’re losing our identity; things ain’t how they used to be; etc. That’s admittedly always felt like a particularly shallow take to me, especially as I’ve gotten older, and I can’t help but judge, negatively, when a music artist I generally enjoy enters into that fray with that type of point of view.

I like kiwi psych rockers The Spectre Collective quite a bit. They are entering into the fray with Neuro Death, going 90s CGI with the apropos cover art, and changing up their style for a krautrock tinged embrasure of synths and programmed drums, landing on a sound between King Gizzard’s off brand experiments (think Infest the Rat’s Nest) and Trans Am.

But: they have not taken the typical lyrical tack for approach, and I can’t help but judge the opposite way: I’m positively inclined towards the album’s narrative, which uses the group’s tendencies toward thematically meaningful myth / lore-laden narratives to obsess over the gods of the machines, and the ways in which our society – good or bad – is changing with their influence. Some of these tracks are just brilliant digs into something specific, through the storyline’s lens – God Helmet’s wielding of power; Concrete Culture’s consideration of shifting priorities between the generations – while some are just interesting explorations of the journey. All of them are a good read.

And I dig the commitment to the shtick with the changeup in the sound, which definitely results in a fair amount of rockers which maintain the psych influence, but channeled through an expressively depressed roboticness, which can oddly sometimes tip over into synth pop a la The Dandy Warhols’ Welcome to the Monkey House.

But as you might note from part of that description, there’s a purposeful limitation to the sound. Within that, SC accomplish quite a bit, but even from the opener it never quite feels like any given track is allowed to let loose, with much of the album landing at a very similar pace, and tonal register. The lyrics and the fun of the general sound are thus the hook; hooks themselves don’t appear as much otherwise. So why not go all in and include a 6-minute, ambient, spoken word instruction on how to “use” this recording? Hemi-Sync is an interesting idea that solidifies this as a concept album, though it’s also a bit of a slog.

The Spectre Collective brought something new to an almost always-tired discussion. Blended with the group’s musical inventiveness, Neuro Death is often a fun genre workout, but sonically it only gets the album so far.