No. 13 - Revolt (EP), Future Faces (2017)

(Over a series of twenty short posts – one per week for the remaining weeks of this decade – I am aiming to highlight in vaguely chronological order some of the most important and influential releases in the goth/post-punk/darkwave genre of the 2010’s).

Every now and then, a band arrives on the scene seemingly from nowhere yet perfectly formed – no low-fi demo EP, no awkward first album finding a direction. Future Faces are one such band, arriving in 2017 with a first EP (entitled Revolt) of such quality that despite being released on one-man operation Throatruiner Records, it immediately caused a stir amongst the darkwave community.

Just four songs made up the debut release, which in time-honoured fashion (think Unknown Pleasures, Killing Joke or Damage Done) came in a monochromatic sleeve with artwork that made the perfect t-shirt yet gave no clue as to the origin or identity of the band in question.

The band’s Bandcamp page was more helpful, revealing that not only were the band Swiss, but that two thirds of them had previously been in a band called Equus, who a decade earlier had released a couple of albums of very experimental sounds, lengthy instrumental albums combining krautrock and free-form psychedelia likely to shoot off at a tangent without any notice.

Some of those creative features contributed to the multi-layered songs on the Revolt EP, which at seven or eight minutes were way beyond the usual track length of guitar-based post-punk compositions. The somewhat distant echoing male vocal had a lugubrious quality that brought to mind Brendan Perry (Dead Can Dance) or Iain McCulloch which was entirely appropriate for the musical backing but very different from the usual gravel-throated Eldritch mimicry of so many scene vocalists. The music itself featured a stark yet shifting reverberating electronic drum backbeat interwoven with syncopated bass rhythms, over which a classically post-punk reverberated guitar constantly soars, shimmering as it takes it own path away from the main melody to introduce a new segment of each song, echoing the six-string alchemy of The Edge on U2’s incredible Boy debut in 1980.

Clearly surprised by the uniquely positive reaction to the release, the Swiss trio have yet to release any further songs in the intervening two and a half years and have only played a handful of live dates, mainly in their native Geneva area, although their Facebook page reveals that they have been in the studio and that new recordings are imminent. Indeed, it took the band almost a year to produce a video for the EP’s lead (and by far shortest) track Embraces, which showed the bearded trio backlit in blue and surrounded by dry ice in time-honoured tradition.

Whilst there are many other bands who have produced excellent work this decade in a similar melodic and melancholic vein that brings to mind the disparate likes of The Chameleons, The Cure and even early Coldplay, such as Italian groups like Starcontrol and Tanks and Tears, Americans Night Nail or Belgians Slice of Life, no-one has produced a debut with depth, the atmosphere and the sheer musicality of Future Faces’ Revolt EP, which can be bought via Bandcamp.