Cabaret Voltaire - Shadow of Fear [Purple]

Cabaret Voltaire came out of Sheffield in 1973, three men with tape loops, a beaten-up rhythm box, and no interest in anything resembling a normal band. They pioneered industrial music before it had a name, and their influence runs through techno, house, hip-hop production, and every act that ever built a song from noise.

Shadow of Fear, released in 2020, was the first new Cabaret Voltaire album in twenty-six years, and Richard H. Kirk made it alone. It is dense, hypnotic, and unnervingly timely, built from rolling drum machines, sampled voices, and slabs of noise that build without ever quite resolving.

"Be Free" opens with eleven minutes of pure propulsion, "The Power (Of Their Knowledge)" and "Papa Nine Zero Delta United" work the same restless groove, and the whole thing plays like a soundtrack to a world coming apart at low frequency. Kirk died in 2021, making this the final Cabaret Voltaire statement.

This limited edition is pressed on purple vinyl across two LPs in a gatefold jacket. A fitting last word from one of the most influential electronic acts Britain produced.