Way back in 2020, we introduced you to Blood by way of its debut album, Testamental. At the time, we referred to the so-called “goth rock” endeavor as the pandemic side project of Nicholas Schubert—then a member of prominent Milwaukee synth-pop outfit GGOOLLDD—that we said “should absolutely continue making and releasing music” once the Covid crisis was behind us. Thankfully, Schubert decided to do just that.
In the nearly six years since Testamental‘s release, Schubert has made Blood his primary and only musical priority, and he also welcomed Nick Hoffmann into the mix along the way. The duo has played out semi-regularly and has been working hard on new material. Singles have been gradually seeing the light of day in recent months, which will ultimately culminate with a long-awaited EP release (and release show) on Friday, September 11. Before Blood casts the five-song release out into the world on Bandcamp all streaming platforms, they have one more song to share with listeners.
“Stay Alive” is the fourth and final single from the forthcoming EP, entitled Closed Timelike Curves. Like the singles that preceded it, this aural offering is delightfully dark and is enveloped in an almost dream-like haze conveyed by lush, mysterious electronic instrumentation and Schubert’s understated and smooth vocal delivery. Blood says “the EP is centered around memory, time distortion, and emotional repetition. We were interested in that feeling of memory misfiring, where something from the past feels familiar, but also unstable or distorted.”
When recording and producing the effort at Hoffmann’s home studio, the band tried to tap into that misfiring memory theme by implementing “analog samples pulled from old cassette tapes, vinyl fragments, and found audio” into the post-punk, darkwave, shoegaze, and industrial sonic landscapes they had fashioned. Calling Closed Timelike Curves “a real step forward” for them, Blood says the EP “feels like the most intentional version of the project we’ve made so far, both sonically and conceptually.” Hear, hear.
Before Blood releases Closed Timelike Curves and headlines a release show at Cactus Club on Friday, September 11, listen to “Stay Alive” here and stream the project’s three previous singles on Spotify.
