Industrial, metal, and the darker side of the synthpop spectrum converge in the world of Lament Cityscape.
The brainchild of musician Mike McClatchey, Lament Cityscape has built a considerable rep within those musicial communities, and their new album, A Darker Discharge, is being heralded as another gem in their discography.
"Lament started in 2013 and was meant for just a studio project until I had the horrible idea of trying to play it alone," says Mike McClatchey, the driving force behind Lament Cityscape. "I went through a couple live formats with no live drums but with a live bassist and synth/noise. After a year or so I met up with Seánan [McCullough] to have live drums and we’ve experimented with different live lineups since then."
No Echo asks Mike about the sonic touchpoints he explores in the space he's created for Lament Cityscape. "There are the obvious influences of the classics such as Godflesh, NIN, old Ministry… but there are also huge Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Killing Joke influences.
"Our current album is really based in heavy industrial metal, but in the past we’ve played around with drone, sludge, noise rock… I call it 'Larva-Rock' because I figure we’ll get around to doing a bunch of different sounds and fly imagery has been a huge part of Lament, so I don’t know."
A Darker Discharge was written, recorded and mixed by Mike at Underland Studio in Buffalo, but not that Buffalo.
"We moved from Oakland to Wyoming to stay as safe as possible regarding COVID. I instantly felt pushback from everyone here. Almost daily we would see 'Keep Your California Out of My Wyoming' shirts or bumper stickers. Trump flags being flown far after him losing. Homophobic and racist garbage everywhere. It set a tone for the album to be a lot angrier, faster, and more confrontational."
Mike tells No Echo: "I’m answering these questions while on a break from packing boxes and moving to Portland. So by the time this is published we will be a Portland band, and there are thousands of bands there."
A Darker Discharge is out tomorrow (April 29th) via Lifeforce Records (pre-order).
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Tagged: lament cityscape
