Noise Rock veteran Chris Spencer is probably a great guy to hang out with, but you have to imagine he could read out the ingredients to a tin of pea soup and make it sound panic-inducing. 

So when the fraught howls of the sometime Unsane frontman call a warning cry of collapsing society — as they do throughout Gone Dark (Ipecac Recordings), the second album of noise-rock supergroup Human Impact — it’s definitely time to run for the nearest bunker. 

Spencer is one of these musicians who you can instantly recognise both in his vocals, but also guitar stylings. The jagged arpeggios running through the spine of Gone Dark mean the musical exoskeleton of Unsane is always on view. But with the swirling synth fumes of Cop Shoot Cop’s Jim Coleman’s, the menacing bass of Eric Cooper (of ridiculously underrated Made Out of Babies) and powerhouse drumming from Daughters’ Jon Syverson the band is never dominated by one voice. 

Spencer set out to make the album feel like the product of a band unit and it shows in the interplay between rhythm section and the guitars and keys piling on their layers of impending doom and unease.

Yes, Gone Dark is a very uneasy record, but compelling with it. Tracks like “Destroy to Rebuild”, (carried along on a sea of brooding anxiety by Spencer’s snarls and occasional yelping bursts), rely less on flashy extravagance than they do on relentless grinding through the gloom of a nighttime landscape of fear and despair.  

Everyone plays their part in producing the powerful, unrelenting, feel-bad impact of the record — Spencer’s guitar and vocal cords slice, Coleman’s synths churn and squeal, while Cooper’s bass lines lock the listener into a hypnotic pulse. 

But if there’s one member of the band who threatens to steal the whole show it could be Syverson and his powerhouse drumming performances. On “Reform” for example, the tom work is asking for a chef’s kiss, while the rolls peppered throughout “Corrupted” are exquisitely executed. 

Don’t listen to this album if you want to unwind after a stressful day. Gone Dark is the soundtrack to a very bad day all over the world and it almost makes the world’s suffering seem worth it.  

Buy the album here:
https://humanimpact.bandcamp.com/album/gone-dark-out-oct-4th-2024 

8 / 10
TOM OSMAN
Follow Tom’s work here: