Album Review: Trianglecuts – When Death Leaves

Manchester duo Trianglecuts set out an impressive sonic and lyrical manifesto on the new album, When Death Leaves.

Comprising Gwen Osmond on vocals and visuals, and Doug Gordon on synths, beats, and music production, Trianglecuts adapt some of the classic signature sounds of post-punk and dark wave and propel them to the darkest corners of the dancefloor on When Death Leaves, yet there is no escaping that what makes the album such a vital listening experience is the quality of the lyrics and the way the duo wraps them within vocals and soundscapes that are highly atmospheric and intensely emotive.

The title track is an atmospheric tour de force, body imagery transforming into body horror, cloaking the listener in a gathering storm of sound and words that becomes increasingly claustrophobic as it reaches its anxiety-provoking climax. I’ve enjoyed listening to the track over the last few days, but I’m still rather unnerved by the ease with which it triggers primal thoughts and feelings. You can find out more about the song’s creation in a Deep Dive the band did for us in April.   

The contrast between that and the relentless fearsome forward momentum of I Suffer is noticeable but not jarring. It exposes how skilful Osmond and Gordon are at using each element of a song to trigger a response – should you dance or allow your fight-or-flight response to kick into gear?

Visuals are an important part of the band’s live sets, as well as their videos, and that relationship goes two ways: Dance of the Possessed and dEvil In Me work great as songs in their own right, but also navigate a path that could see them sliding ominously into the soundtracks of a Dario Argento or Jane Schoenbrun movie.

Equally, they allow the listener to see other aspects of Trianglecuts’ sound – if the first half of the album is about subconscious self-indulgence in the dance, the latter half is post-climactic. Love and desire, possibly even lust, remain, but I can’t help but thinking that a price has been demanded for our pleasure, and this is where we must pay.

That said, the band hasn’t disclosed if there is an overall story linking the tracks together, but the lyrics offer up some clues – enough to allow you to envision a world where dance and desire meet. But also, it offers escape and respite in its own particular way, sharp, sophisticated, and vibrantly stylised.   

When Death Leaves was released on the 31st of July, 2026, via Ghost Replica Media and can be downloaded on Bandcamp, where you can also pick up the album in cassette format. Trianglecuts play Wharf Chambers in Leeds on the 7th of August – for details on that and streaming options for the album, head to the band’s Facebook and Instagram feeds.