Curse Mackey - Immoral Emporium

Curse Mackey is an Austin fixture and a lifer in American industrial music, having lent his hands to Pigface and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and founded the San Antonio outfit Evil Mothers. Immoral Emporium is the anticipated follow-up to his 2019 solo debut Instant Exorcism, and it is the sound of a veteran stepping fully into the spotlight. Two years in the making during the pandemic, this album sees Curse taking it to a new level in production, lyrics and emotion, channeling that long isolation into one of the most assured darkwave records of its year.

The album prowls the shadowed border between goth, industrial, and EBM, but it is built to move bodies as much as haunt them. It slides into poppy, upbeat club territory on the earworm "Dead Fingers Talk," a cut tailor-made for the goth and industrial dancefloor, while the title track and "The Reveal" lean into Mackey's theatrical, storytelling side. Throughout, the production runs on monstrous synths, cavernous atmosphere, and hard-won feeling.

The record's biggest moments are its most cathartic. "Omens and Monuments" builds toward a goosebump-inducing, synth-drenched climax that leaves the whole album pointed hopefully at the future. Little wonder that one of the scene's leading magazines crowned it the year's number one industrial and EBM release. Fans of the darker, danceable end of the spectrum will find plenty here to obsess over.

Released on Negative Gain Productions, this LP brings a modern darkwave standout to vinyl, pressed for the club and the candlelit bedroom alike. An essential pickup for anyone who lives where the goth and industrial worlds meet.