Featuring current and former members of luminaries such as 13 Candles, Every New Dead Ghost and Midnight Configuration (amongst others), Nottinghamshire’s Chaos Bleak are a gothic fans dream (or should that be nightmare?!) and have an undeniable pedigree. Yet, band chemistry is a funny thing and there’s no guarantee that chemicals will fizz in a new combination, but this trio showed their prowess with their debut album A New Age Of Darkness (reviewed here), and proving that was no fluke, they return with their sophomore album, the aptly-titled Agents Of Chaos.

Now signed to the Gothic World Records imprint, Chaos Bleak have risen to the challenge a new label presents and have produced an album just as fiery as the red sleeve in which it’s housed. Alluding to the band’s love of retro science fiction, ‘Out Of The Unknown’ is an intro that’s very Hammer Horror and it seems to hypnotise us, transporting us to another dimension, and this means that when ‘Feast For The Senses’ kicks in, it kicks in hard. This is primetime Chaos Bleak; the drum machine ticks like a primed bomb, the bass hits the solar plexus whilst the relentless riff clubs the listener into submission. This is gothic rock, but not as you know it; it’s The Sisters Of Mercy filtered through Killing Joke, delivered with that Black Sabbath punch and force fed methamphetamine, and the result is just as explosive as you’d expect. Piers’ vocals operate with a kind of robotic authority, and when coupled with the clinical, surgical beat creates an Orwellian, dystopian feel, kind of like Nineteen-Eighty Four, only forty years later…in 2024!

The great thing about Chaos Bleak is their refusal to adhere to the gothic template. While many of their peers concern themselves with cobwebs, catacombs and coffins, this Notts trio explore the lack of prospects for the working class (‘Dress The Kids For War’) and social inequality (‘Like The Master Says’), and it’s a lyrical bent that makes the band more frightening by dint of its realism. In fact, every song on this album is like a vignette, a musical novella that explores a moment in time; the band lift back a curtain to reveal a discombobulating, disconcerting scene and present it in a matter-of-fact manner; the judgement is all yours. If I’ve made Chaos Bleak sound dark and oppressive, that’s because they are, but there’s no shade without light and the band’s humour (dark, naturally) can’t help but filter through and it’s present in the odd in-joke, sample and turn of phrase, it’s not obvious but it adds contrast, often subliminally, but mostly the band dish out the hard stuff, prime examples being ‘They Have No Right’ and ‘Magnu’.

Agents Of Chaos sounds like a more electronic Chaos Bleak than their debut album, and they’re used to create atmosphere and add a cinematic quality, and if you want a frightening glimpse of a not-to-distant future, it’s right here.

• Agents Of Chaos is released via Gothic World Records and is available now (from here).

Track List:

1. Out Of The Unknown
2. Feast For The Senses
3. The Weak And The Strong
4. Dress The Kids For War
5. Dance With Disaster
6. Like The Master Says
7. Calling From Afar
8. A Kiss In The Garden
9. Reveal Your Secret Name
10. They Have No Right
11. Long Black Coat
12. Mythos
13. Magnu

Bonus Tracks:

14. Transcendence *
15. Battle Across The Stars *
16. Hang On Every Word *

* CD only