The Bleak Engineers is a new music project featuring Svetlana Nagaeva (known as her alter ego Zombierella from Messer Chups and The Bonecollectors) and Alexander Moralez (also known from Moralez and Trivia). Although, saying “known from” may be a stretch as few of these bands (with the exception of Messer Chups) are particularly known beyond (and even in) their native Russia.
Word is spreading, though, and The Bleak Engineers have been mentioned in several end-of-year lists – mostly amongst connoisseurs of retro synth/electronica and the ‘cold wave’ genre.
I was not particularly familiar with the cold wave term myself, but it exists, and the Bleak Engineers are strong ambassadors of it. It is a distant cousin of the synth section of the New Wave (obviously no longer particularly ‘new’) of the early 1980s. That’s when music became more artful and pop-based, incorporating more synths and becoming more experimental.
In cold wave, the synth has completely taken over. The music embraces melancholy, bleakness, and a naked, emotionless soundscape. The inner goth of any listener will be embraced here.
The Bleak Engineers are definitely going for the retro feel of the late 1970s/early 1980s in their music, and one way to achieve that is by using equipment from that time. Their synthesizers all come from the 1970s or early 1980s. The drum machines are of a similar vintage.
The music mainly consists of Alexander’s retro synth-based sounds and percussion, with Svetlana’s pounding, compressed bass sound. On top, there will be monotone vocal deliveries from them both (mostly Svetlana), but several tracks are also instrumental.
The results are strangely peculiar, somewhat hypnotic, and with an unexpected high capacity of burrowing into your brain.
If I had heard these songs for the first time without context, I could have believed that this was one of the vintage synth-pop bands of the late 1970s.
This is not like anything else I normally listen to, and I came to this through being a fan of Messer Chups and a follower of miss Zombierella on social media. I kept seeing her posts about this new project. I checked it out, as you do, and there was something about the music that hooked me immediately.
If you like dark synth-pop of the early 1980s this is not a mile away from that – imagine a fusion of the more synth-based works from bands like The Cure, Siouxsie & the Banshees, and Ultravox. Not that they sound like any of those bands.
The Bleak Engineers have their own sound and sound more retro than any of those much older bands. The duo’s dedication to all things vintage is nothing but endearing. They could easily be seen as forerunners of the goth style and movement had they existed back in the day.
The Bleak Engineers frequently succeed at creating a hypnotic, droning, melancholic soundscape with all their peculiar sounds. It is never going to be “my” music, but I really like this album. It has been a refreshing and interesting listen and I can see myself going back to it many times.
This may not be prime listening for warm, pastoral, sunny summer days. This is music for a rainy day, bleak fall/winter landscapes, towns made up of faceless concrete buildings, or failing that, a dark room. Cold wave is the new wave!
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