Total Decay

Luis Vasquez already seemed pretty comfortable with the dark side of his music on the Soft Moon's self-titled debut album, but he dives even deeper into it on the Total Decay EP. It may be only four songs long, but Vasquez makes up for its small size by packing even more ominous drones and evil-sounding synths into it. The title track lives up to its name, with alternately writhing and piercing electronic tones that bore through ears like maggots working their way through flesh, while "Repetition" pits death-rattle percussion against feral yelps and squealing synths that sound like they're being tweaked within an inch of their circuits. All this darkness comes at a price, however: Vasquez largely sacrifices the pop moments that balanced the Soft Moon's sinister sonic experiments. "Alive" comes the closest to Vasquez's approach on his debut, but even this track's whispers and screams are more abstract, and somehow more relentless, than what came before. "Visions"' alien buzz and piled-on tribal beats end Total Decay on a confident and somewhat claustrophobic note, reaffirming that while the Soft Moon may not always be easy listening, Vasquez knows exactly what he's doing. ~ Heather Phares