<p><span><span>- New wave nihilists Special Interest have returned with their second LP <em>The Passion Of… </em> proof undeniable of the band’s status as one of the most vital and vivacious acts in music today. On their second full length, the eclectic New Orleans four-piece shock & awe us with a piercingly precise, yet utterly deranged vision of modern anarcho punk; it’s an apocalyptic celebration of love, queerness & community amid an anxiety attack brought on by political injustice, oppression and racism. <em>The Passion Of…</em> is a commanding and confident charge forward for the band, one which pulls us as listeners from out of the mire of apathy and into the perverse and uncertain battlefront of 2020. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>There is a wild & indestructible power which pulses throughout the eleven track album, <strong>Ali Logout</strong>’s thunderous commands and sardonic soliloquies set everything ablaze. Lightning quick, Logout powers and pants though lyrics that range from high camp satire and raw vulnerabilities to insightful, painful political imperatives. Such moments beg, or rather demand answers to their questions: “<em>Am i in hell Or am i high? / What happens when there is nothing left to gentrify / And genocide is on your side / Would you bat an eye / Waiting for war machines to pass you by / But aren't we going out tonight?</em>” </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Hacking & rewiring elements of EDM, industrial, no-wave and new-wave, Special Interest create a frenetic and urgent revision of punk and dance music for a world descending into madness. <em>The Power Of…</em> grabs our memory of glam rock, no wave & post-punk by the scruff of the neck and pulls it passionately through an short-circuiting synth minefield, sparking off conjunctions of sonic mutations that are both unexpected and uncomfortable, yet at the same time utterly pop and contagious. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Special Interest started as a two-piece with just Ali Logout and <strong>Maria Elena</strong> playing guitars and power tools over the beats of a ‘70’s Univox drum machine. While the band has grown in both numbers and menace, these visceral performance and simple industrial pleasures are still very much present 5 years on. In place of lo-fi machinery, we now have Logouts’ commanding vocals which fuel the entire album with their fiery rage. <em>The Power Of...</em> is smutty & sensual, actively political & deeply personal - and the album boils over with the frustration and fury which come with those topics; that of fetishization, the disconcerting pull of desire and disdain, the frustration of unfulfillment & injustice. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>As the album's unrelenting buzz and brute force builds over nine tracks, we reach the climax with the standout closing tracks Street Pulse Beat and With Love, which I confidently pick as Songs of The Year. The former is an oddly soulful, stutty siren song, in which Logout ponders “For am i not your necromancer / your lover in the end of time, in the end of days?” and encapsulates the powerful message at the heart of this album - a call for an all consuming love to prevail in spite of the very real horrors and hate-crimes spewing forth from the Hellmouth that is 2020. These pure and powerful sentiments are echoed in the albums closer, With Love, a track adorened with hope and empowerment, which sings to the pain and unbreakable strenght of the Black and queer communities. Logout reminds & emboldens their community with their lyrics “we have seen this divination /to manifest a love from our hatred / to transform us through the pain / may this leather act as our amour / for for the people will always rise.” It's a song which I believe will for many, become a personal and cultural anthem, and mark an integral moment in music, where the personal and the political are intersecting like never before. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The Power Of… is a distorted, deranged and utterly danceable album for right <strong>now</strong>, weilding a masterful, masochistic grip on the unrelenting desires for lust, change and justice.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>- Dominique Furphy</span></span>.</p>
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