The Suicide of Western Culture are an electronica-powered duo from the Barcelona region who revel in a low-tech approach that creates plenty of depth as well as some lively beats. Their third album, the magnificently titled Long Live Death! Down With Intelligence!, is a significant sonic step forward from their last offering, 2013's Hope Only Brings Pain, marrying a post-rock attitude that brings to mind the likes of Mogwai with the sonic palette of electro-drone merchants Fuckbuttons. It also takes a wry look at the world with all vocals provided by spoken word monologues, like Louise Sansom's (of Animic) hypnotic Orwellian contribution to "Beware of the Fifth Column" or by looped samples of speech, as featured on the epic title track.
"Amor de Madre" opens proceedings with a twisted church organ-like drone, which eventually becomes a pulsating groove that promises plenty. "Dysplasia", with its whoozy synths and repeated descending piano lines, and trancey stomper "Drugs bring me closer to you" emphatically head towards the dancefloor, while "Still breathing but already dead" (already remixed to great effect by The Fields and Spanish DJ Hugo Capablanca) positively invites a total trip out with hands held aloft and blissed-out smiles all round.
The ambient soundscapes and black humour of "You can change everything but your mother and your football team" bring other textures to The Suicide of Western Culture's sound, and the off-kilter beats of "Wheat fields" and New Beat-like groove of "Headless Saints" provide plenty of evidence that there is nothing either over-intellectual or soulless about Long Live Death! Down With Intelligence! In fact, it's an enthralling album that far surpasses the tired neo-shoegaze noise stylings of much of the post-rock world and the doomy and sludgy sounds of the electronica scene that form The Suicide of Western Culture's obvious fellow travellers.
Long Live Death! Down With Intelligence! could also conceivably be in the running for Best Album of 2015.
