Soulwax Rock, Sans Guitars, On ‘All Systems Are Lying’

The intersection of rock and electronic music has been clusterfucked for years, and it takes extraordinary skills to stand out. Belgium’s Soulwax have been in that nexus for decades. The group’s creative core of David and Stephen Dewaele have gone from generating convincing facsimiles of grunge on their 1996 debut LP Leave the Story Untold to the leftfield-techno tracknology of 2018’s Essential. 

For All Systems Are Lying (DEEWEE/Because Music), the Dewaeles said, “We wanted to capture the feeling of a band playing electronic instruments — live, loud and loose.” Using modular synths, live drums, tapes machines, and processed vocals, Soulwax claim to have made “a rock album … without any guitars.” One quibble: All Systems only occasionally rocks. And that’s okay.

Perversely, Soulwax open with “Pills And People Are Gone,” which sounds like an end-of-the-party lament that would make Radiohead weep. “Polaris” is a suspenseful pulse-pounder, like Philip Glass jamming with Justice. The methodically percolating techno-rock of “The False Economy” scans like a denigration of social-media strategies, sung in a sneering, Trent Reznor-like tone. “Engineered Fantasy” bears the woozy, oneiric vibe of Tobacco, but with clearer, more earnest singing.

Album highlight “Run Free” rides rugged, midtempo beats, rubbery bass synths and features the best singing on the record. Flush with yearning, it’s an escapist joint with an undercurrent of peril, buoyed by an acidic 303 solo, a massive swell of synths and a chunky breakbeat. Is it rock? No… it’s better than that.

The closest Soulwax come to rock, as most know it, is “New Earth Time,” in which disaffected vocals float over a beat-heavy attack with vibrant percussion timbres and warped synth zaps. The ominous title track recalls Visage, with its nervy, swerving synth fibrillations and sharp percussion slaps. Later, robust techno beats barge in, with metallic accents and chopped-up female vocals. It’s an exemplary manifestation of Soulwax’s thesis of society’s downward spiral triggered by technology’s most nefarious side effects. And you can dance to it.