Xander Harris

The past two years have found Austin’s Lone State dark lord Xander Harris (aka Justin Sweatt) on a heavy transfigurative trip, overhauling his live rig, detouring through an expansive soundtrack project celebrating the 20th anniversary of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, touring outside Texas (from New Orleans to the Netherlands), plus a host of other inner life turmoils and metamorphoses. All of which seems to have seeped into the synthesizer soil of his stunning second full-length, The New Dark Age Of Love. From the first shimmering hovercraft tones that kick off album opener, “Night Fortress”, the growth is glaring; gone is the slasher camp and horror tropes of Urban Gothic, replaced by sleek, streamlined post-industrial cold-wave dystopias. A Ballardian mood of paranoia, doom, and technocratic elegance reigns, from icy, sci-fi night-drives (“Tristitia,” “Vultures Of Tenderness”) to sweeping cyber-gothic dread symphonies (“Legacies,” “When Prophecy Fails”); even the few forays into overt VHS splatter-score worship (“I Still Look Young In The Dark,” “Bring Me Their Heads”) are executed with a similar sense of future-shocked metropolitan menace. Echoes abound of classic Chris & Cosey urban wasteland synth-pop, Umberto’s vintage evil, and Klaus Schulze at his most candlelit and Crowleyian (and if he’d come of age in the 80′s), but T.N.D.A.L. is unquestionably Sweatt’s story to tell, and it’s a tome. A refined achievement by a deepening talent and generous soul. Recorded in Austin, Texas, 2011-2012. Mastered in Sweden by Ghost Sounds; art and layout by Britt Brown. Black vinyl LP in matte jackets, edition of 750