A rad blast of gritty darkwave, industrial pummel, and raw, heavy post-punk that feels like it's emanating from an open cellar door down at the end of an unlit back alley. Crawling from the underground depths of the online digital space, Latex emerges as one of the more interesting dark electronic post-punk outfits that I've stumbled across lately, and I love this stuff. The Crucial Blast release of Latex's Extended Agony expands into an album-length collection that pairs the re-mastered Agony EP with a seven-song b-side of singles and EPs from the earlier days of the project, all presented on physical media for the first time.

That Agony EP is where I first started listening to Latex, with its killer, often ghastly-sounding gloompop juiced up with pounding industrial elements, snarling synthesizers, some seriously heavy electro-doom moments, and a patina of gnarled electronics. That recent EP stuff bites into a kind of machine-driven, bass-heavy post-punk / darkwave hybrid that occasionally reminds me of some of the more abrasive Cold Cave stuff, but it also has its own eccentric songwriting style and aggressive sound that sets it apart. Latex's multi-faceted singing keeps the EP and singles interesting, as well. Moving between a droning baritone croon, hushed whispers, soulful singing, and a hair-raising snarl that sounds like it drifted over from a black metal demo, it's quite well done.

From the first pounding beat of "No More Words", the remastered Agony EP locks into Latex's relentless machine-drive that propels the music's malevolent distorted synthesizers, freezing melodies, and detached, debased vocals like some ferocious industrialized version of classic coldwave. It gets heavier and more abrasive from there, from the crushing, almost metallic post-punk of "What You Cant See", massive and churning even while a beautifully melancholy melody slips around the barbed crunch, to the dark industrial throb of "Mk. X " that blends classic 80's era dancefloor terror with harsh, almost blackened shrieks rising over the beat. Stomping electronic rhythms turn "Blood Bank Sluts" into a macabre dirge with touches of death rock, but still dominated by those punishing blown-out synths, while the slow-motion misery of "Hole" shifts into a strange mix of almost industrial-metal like heaviosity and soulful, bereaved singing.

Each song on Agony is its own beast, delivering an atmosphere of anguish at varying tempos and intensity. Throughout the EP, those grinding metallic edges meet up with heavily distorted darksynth elements, which add to the overall raw intensity and weight of Latex's sound. Towards the end, the music moves into more mesmeric gloom-pop with "Are the Stories True", a strangely bluesy hook coursing through the song. "Teeth" drops another punishing electro-dirge with blasts of metallic crush, hinting at the influence of older Nine Inch Nails, but punctuated with these massive riffs that seem to transform into a kind of cybernetic doom metal. Closer "Snakes and Devils" wraps it back around to the kind of hypnotic, heavily distorted darkwave that began the EP.

The other half of the fifty-minute collection features another seven songs taken from various digital-only sources from Latex's back catalog, all from early 2024. First is the original mixes of the two-song single "Your Mouth is Full of Dead Words" / "Spectral Flesh", big bludgeoning blasts of mesmeric mechanical darkwave, saturated in distortion, inhabited by Latex's murmuring, ghostlike baritone vocals and ghoulish shrieks. Like a diabolical, blackened cousin to mid-1980s synthpop. The single "Together In The End" evokes the feel of Depeche Mode's darkest moments, shrouded in keening keyboards and burbling electronics, where the funkier, rock-style "Dance Hard" is more strained, urgent, raw, almost sneering at you as it drops a catchy synth hook right in your lap. The last three tracks make up the Blood Bank Sluts EP, all remastered and remixed by Squid (aka Aaron Shelton from psychedelic black metallers Grave Gnosis): this cheekily-titled EP is pure, high-test goth industrial schlock, hammering out fuzzed-out, death rock influenced dance stomp, the songs "Blood Bank Sluts", "Snakes & Devils", and "Deep in Hell" delivering big programmed beats, cemetery ambience, big blown-out synths and delicious dark pop hooks. That stuff is a blast, echoing elements of Christian Death, classic Cleopatra Records hard goth rock, and that retro-darkwave vibe that permeates all of Latex's music.

One of the first new post-punk / goth rock related releases on Crucial Blast in years, I've been hooked on this stuff ever since discovering it via Bandcamp. I love the rawness, the catchiness, and the grimy heaviness of it all, and this early work from Latex foreshadows the amazing stuff that's coming down the pipeline with his debut album. Keep your ears open.

Limited to 100 copies, this cassette includes detailed release information on the collected material in the sleeve, and comes with a digital download code.