Perturbator’s combination of ‘synthwave’ with growling metal works beautifully ★★★★☆

It seems as if the French musician James Kent aka Perturbator once went to sleep confused only to wake up in the wrong music genre. He had been a guitarist in metal bands for some time, but in recent years he has been making somewhat nostalgic synthesizer music, inspired by science fiction films and the work of director and composer John Carpenter, and then combined it with black metal.

The mixture of his ‘synthwave’ with roaring vocals works beautifully Final Light, a collaboration between Kent and the vocalist and guitarist Johannes Persson of the Swedish band Cult of Luna. In It Came with the Water you hear gothic rock and new wave combined with the growling power of the darkest of all metal types. The echoing, monotonous guitar colors nicely next to the ethereal synths and bone-dry drum computer, and especially the atmosphere remains breathtaking for a long time. But tracks like the title track Final Light They also have song power: the song struggles along abysses of bassy synths and ends in resignation, to soothing soundtrack melodies from an imaginary horror film from the eighties.