#deadtalkback

Listen to the song “Lightstar” by Coachella Valley dark-wave artist Dead Talk Back.  Here’s a link to our review of their 2021 self-titled album: 

Dead Talk Back (ex-members of Batskinners, Bone Pillar, Venus and the Traps, Bone Pillar, and Celluloid Humanoid) is an electronic act out of Coachella, CA, which has released three albums within the past year. They are interesting for their unique instrumentation and subject matter. Readers are encouraged to check them out if they are looking for a doomy, gloomy, and adventurous score to their spooky activities.

Dead Talk Back, the band’s self-titled debut album released in August 2021, sounds like Geneva Jacuzzi mixed with Christian Death or The Cramps. It is moody, introspective, and phantasmagoric, primarily made with analog synthesizers (Moog Grandmother, an ARP Odyssey, a Korg Volca Modular, a Korg Volca FM, and a Korg Volca Beats), bass, and drums, and a guitar appears like a specter on some songs such as “Limbo.” Lyrics about seclusion, doom, decay, and entombment of the body and spirit permeate this album, which I would describe as techno-mare. Songs like “Lightstar” and “Transfusion” are upbeat, yet cold, and can be motivate a listener to dance, but not all the music is made for the dance floor. A moody, euphoric, instrumental track like “Orpheus” sounds like it sampled crickets and directly follows “Lightstar,” suggesting any attempt at freedom or movement is restricted. There is a sense that the listener’s experience was taken into consideration and the song order and atmosphere is important: they want to communicate their wretchedness and isolation. This could be a great album to soundtrack a painting session or, like the name suggests, a zombie movie. They make me want to put on a leather jacket, smoke cigarettes, and drive down a poorly-lit desert road (and there are many of those in the band’s hometown of Coachella).

Listening to Dead Talk Back is like a journey, the listener navigating through fog and graveyards. Multi-instrumentalist James Montenegro leads the project like a tour guide, pointing out various graveyards, sad episodes, and scenes of misery, subjects tormented, worlds falling apart. On this album, he is joined by Antonio Duran, who lends his vocal talents to several songs. They operate like a sturm und drang tag team, taking turns constructing lyrical gallows as ear candy wobbles throughout the album: movie samples and long fade outs, an icicle synth on “Aomori,” twirly synth intros on “Limbo,” and spaceship synths on “Dermestid” enter the second verse like a ghost, which all add to the adventurousness of this album, a set of songs intended to haunt and reward the listener. But there is not any hope to be found on this album. It is a focused, contained meditation on darkness, suffocating torment.

There are moments that sound like Throbbing Gristle (without the perversity), and others that sound like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and even Soft Cell, but it all returns to the black mood, the album’s recurring motif.

After Dead Talk Back, the band released two more albums, all of which continue the blueprint started on this album, especially the album “00000,” which includes the stand out tracks “mistletoe” and “category three.” Readers are encouraged to give Dead Talk Back a couple listens on Bandcamp: www.deadtalkback.bandcamp.com. And check out an .mp3 of "Lightstar" below, which is posted with the artist's permission.

We promise more updates on this exciting band soon.