New Music: YZBL – Patterns

A glimpse into the upcoming Hermaphrodite album from YZBL, Patterns is brutal, overwhelming, and a perversely exhilarating listening experience.

YZBL – pronounced Jezebel – has established a bleak and beautiful tonal palette on Patterns, one that doesn’t conform to any genre expectations. And yet, it offers an ambience that is both comforting and claustrophobic.

With percussion that borrows from early industrial and EBM, its presence, and sudden absence that allows the oppressive aura of the doom-meets-goth guitar to reign, it upends your senses: like a hymn to the damned. The vocals are set relatively low in the mix, acting as colour or another instrument to be played and twisted out of place, adding to the sensation that you’re at the edge of dystopia, or a sonic surrender to the abyss of the unknown.

Hermaphrodite is out on the 7th of August via Lana Del Rabies’ Feral Crone Recordings. It’s available for pre-order on Bandcamp in CD and digital editions – follow YZBL on Instagram for album news.