After practising their dark art for almost 45 years, you could say that Coventry darkwave band Attrition are master alchemists, and they’ve been painting the globe in glorious shades of monochrome since 1980. It’s a career that’s found them playing every gothic haunt whilst punctuating their ceaseless activity with a series of critically-acclaimed albums. Their latest long player, The Black Maria, finds the classic ‘80s line-up reunited and reigniting their old (black) magic to create a career-defining album.

With the original ‘80s configuration back together for the first time in 30 years, you might think that The Black Maria is the sound of Attrition coming full circle, yet it is more a new door opening, and that’s precisely the function that ‘The Promise’ serves. It’s a dark and disconcerting introduction, an egress to a cemetery crypt you know you shouldn’t traverse, only its pull is too strong to be denied; but be warned, once you’re in there’s no getting out. ‘The Great Derailer’ is the opener proper and it was also the title-track to the band’s 2020 EP. It’s a truly haunting piece of music, and no matter how many times I hear it, it never fails to raise the hairs on my arms. It is (like the whole album) darkly cinematic and casts a spell over the listener in a way that only the best horror films can.

There are several vocalists employed on this album including Emke (Black Nail Cabaret), Elisa Day (Hetaira Decrépita) and Yvette (Vaselyne), yet the biggest revelation is original singer Julia. Like a medium at a séance, Julia seems to channel the soul of a departed (and possibly tortured) spirit, and her contribution to this record is very organic (a darkwave scat, if you will) and makes a fine counterpoint to the samples and surgical synths. None of these eight tracks inhabit a similar sonic space, but if there’s one thing that stitches it all together, it’s Julia’s wail wending its way through the album like a ghost across desolate moors.

Attesting to the band’s vintage, The Black Maria never feels forced or rushed, and the band take all the necessary time to build discombobulating soundscapes. Neither do Attrition feel the need to scrawl their sound on every surface; they know when to step back and bring certain instruments to the fore, case in point being ‘The Reprisal’. A kind of Kraftwerk on downers, ‘The Reprisal’ stands naked and in stark contrast to the rest of the album, but in the arc of The Black Maria it makes perfect sense. It’s the title-track that brings the album to a conclusion, and just like a brutalist structure in their native Coventry, it’s a monolithic beast that’s constructed in the worship of some strange deity.

Welcome (back) to the dark side.

• The Black Maria is a Two Gods Production and is released on 23rd March 2024 (available here).
• Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube Channel

Track List:

1. The Promise
2. The Great Derailer
3. The Switch
4. The Pillar II
5. The Alibi
6. The Reprisal
7. The Zero Hour
8. The Black Maria

1. The Ascetic Priest
2. The 25 Minute Window