There’s something about the autumn season that always makes darker music sound just a bit more fetching than it normally does, and it’s perhaps in this spirit that the upcoming November release of The New Jacobin Club’s new album Empire of Dis feels so appropriate. 2022 hasn’t brought a lot of smart goth rock out of the underground, especially in comparison to recent landmark years for the iconic indie genre, but I don’t know that Empire of Dis needed the lack of serious competitors to sound like a stand-out release right now. With tracks like “The Hunter” and “Lord Henry Steps Out” serving as moody staples of the LP, The New Jacobin Club makes a statement about priorities and goals one and the same here, which is more than I can say for some of the aloof players trying to make something similar at the moment.
There’s a real brutishness to the bassline in “The Priestess” that I wasn’t expecting off the bat, but elements of discord don’t impede the flow of the music here at all – if anything this is a band that appears to thrive on chaos environments more than most in their scene do. There’s no pushback from the textural edge in “In Crimson Snow” or Blue Serpents,” but instead a pang of hunger for more pressure and tension in this mix than a lot of artists would have known what to do with – no matter the genre of music they play. I respect the adventurousness The New Jacobin Club has, and it would be nice to see it get an even bigger share of the spotlight in their next proper album.
Empire of Dis isn’t all about brawn and sonic might; truthfully, there are some moments of real poetic symmetry that caught my attention immediately upon sitting down with “Behind the Veil,” “What is the Night,” and “The Priestess.” It’s abundantly clear that The New Jacobin Club have something genuine they want to convey with this tracklist as opposed to merely reveling in the exhibition of strength that their riffs can produce, and when considering how many bands in hard rock aren’t as concerned with their artistic depth in 2022, it makes the effort that this crew is affording their new album all the more exciting to come across. Stylish and yet not overly sophisticated, this is a group of detail-oriented players that I could get very intrigued by if they continue to develop at the rate they do inside of this record’s best moments.
The New Jacobin Club gives us a great introduction to their sound here, and if this is just a sample of what they’re able to accomplish in ideal circumstances, one has to ponder just how much they could unleash if given even more breathing room than they had for the creation of Empire of Dis. Conceptually and compositionally this is tough as nails music, but the underpinnings of darkness aren’t completely the reason why. These are musicians in the traditional, and their rejection of annoyingly plasticized elements in pop/rock today is refreshing to put it quite mildly. There’s a future behind Empire of Dis, and I’ll be looking forward to hearing what it’s going to sound like for myself.
Heather Savage