The Passengers Under the Cruel Light LP
Debut album by the goth/post-punk band from San Diego, the PASSENGERS. It seems that every month I’m telling you the same thing, but there is something sinister in the water in Southern California, where bands just pop out incredibly formed, with fully crafted statements, personality traits, and a carefully developed sound—case in point, the PASSENGERS. The band has a sense of dynamics within their songs that plays to their advantage, each song has a narrative arc with peaks and valleys, the faster songs are full of vitality while the mid-tempos are oppressive and brutal. The keyboard work generates oppressive or romantic atmospheres depending on what the song requires, the drums are powerful, the bass hypnotic, the guitars melancholic, and the voice tremendous. I want to highlight “The Plague,” “Strange Patterns,” and “Burning Pride,” great anthems that any follower of darker sounds should listen to now.