Our obsession with _SHOE’s seems to grow with every listen. We last featured the artist for My Curse and ROBOTIC_CAPTIVITY, so naturally, couldn’t wait to publish a follow-up with a review of Circuital Melancholy.
Circuital Melancholy opens with a cerebral soundscape featuring a haunting synth and panning ethereal vocals ebbing and flowing with intricate percussion details like rippling water. The opus expands with 80s drums and layered melodies to create a super cohesive yet neuroplasticity enhancing tapestry of sound.
As always, we appreciate the dimensionality and the textured drum riffs. There is no doubt that _SHOE has a signature sound that comes to life which feels like a scene from a movie like Blade or Blade Runner. The introduction of a dark-wave-vocal-inspired thought provocation as we are reminded of early System of a Down. Fans of Depeche Mode, New Order, Boy Harsher, Lebanon Hanover, andThe Cure would also be able to vibe with Circuital Melancholy.
We have to take a moment for the artwork too, which sees the artist in a row of a file library, all masked up. It’s such a dope editorial and fits the concept of the track too. In essence, Circuital Melancholy is about the emotional cost of technological progress and social conformity.
We learn that the song imagines a universe where people are pressured to suppress their individuality and humanity in order to fit into automated systems. This might sound like science fiction, but it is actually very zeitgeist, and highly literal – something that society is experiencing more and more every day.
The lyrics portray this process as dehumanizing, duh. It expresses how this leaves us feeling disconnected, trapped and numb. It feels like an important call-to-action and a reminder for us to celebrate individuality at a time when systems want to suppress us.
We love the production and the extended outro, and have added Circuital Melancholy to our New Music Spotlight playlist, and our TRIPPY playlist, whilst we continue to stream _SHOE‘s awesome, growing discography and await the release of Corrupted Files From The Vault EP later this year!