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I say this with the utmost love and respect, but the national Industrial/Electronic/Goth/Whatever Else Fills Dark Force Fest scene (especially in my beloved second home of Chicago) is a bloated beast in desperate need of a good popping.
My inbox is regularly inundated with submissions from seemingly everyone with access to cheap recording gear in their bedrooms and an Andrew Eldritch fetish. Look, I love this thing of ours as much as the next 400 people who’ve ever waltzed onstage at a Pigface show, but after a while, it all starts to sound the same … and that sound ain’t always great.
So, how does someone in this scene rise above the maelstrom of mediocrity and offer something fresh and actually exciting?
Be like Bellhead.
For the past half-decade or so, the Chicago-based two-bass duo of Ivan Russia and Karen Righeimer-Schock has consistently risen above the heap the old-fashioned way: by leaving the safe confines of its hometown scene (and their bedrooms!), hitting the road as often as possible, and delivering a slew of exquisitely produced releases that get stronger at every turn.
The pair’s latest EP, Threats, is the sound of two experienced musicians working hard to bring something innovative to the proceedings. Mixing stellar production (including programmed drums that actually sound like drums) with earworm-inducing songwriting, Bellhead succeeds in eclipsing its past work (including 2023’s stellar Good Intentions) while offering a tantalizing preview of even greater things to come.
How to describe Threats without giving away too much of the store? Well, the opening title track is a perfect song to sandwich between Skold vs. KMFDM and Vision Thing. Subdued, snarling male vocals in the verses give way to one of the most soaring, so-simple-yet-effective-it-hurts choruses this side of “Head Like a Hole.” Meanwhile, Righeimer-Schock’s seductive, whispered mid-song refrain — “Good girls get good things / Bad girls take what they want” — seals the deal. The track is a grand statement of intent and progress that instantly makes Bellhead circa 2025 an essential listen.
As for the rest, there’s not a single moment on Threats that betrays the title track’s initial promise. The drum-heavy and brilliantly structured “Shutters + Stutters,” which again utilizes Righeimer-Shock’s quiet, Shoegazey vocals to counterbalance Russia’s Gothy growl, is the EP’s undisputed gem. Elsewhere, the first 30 seconds of “No Dead Heroes” are the best notes Sascha Konietzko and company never wrote, and you can practically smell the amyl nitrate coming out of your speakers during the dark, dance-club-y Stabbing Westward remix of the Good Intentions track “Bad Taste,” which wraps up Threats in a leather-studded bow.
In an era when many of their contemporaries are content to linger in recycled reverb and familiar shadows, Bellhead is already chasing the light ahead.
Bellhead is set to perform at Martin Atkins’ “Extremities” event on Friday, November 28, at Reggies in Chicago. Go here for the typical array of Martinpalooza merch/ticket packages.
Bellhead:
https://bellhead.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bellheadband/
https://www.instagram.com/bellheadband/
https://www.youtube.com/@bellhead3250
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