TV Cult - 'Overpressure'
Emerging from the German underground, 80-inspired Post-Punks TV CULT make an urgent outcry against genocide with their most recent track, ‘Overpressure’.
Ahead of TV CULT’s upcoming sophomore album Industry, ‘Overpressure’ delivers a relentless intensity founded not simply in headbanging fury, but in the menacing anger seeping from every pore of the 3-minute track. Amid the ominously rumbling bassline and shouting vocals there are hints of their Post-Punk and New Wave forebears of Joy Division and New Order, whilst the aching melancholy of the track’s guitars could’ve been taken straight from Disintegration by The Cure. Brutal is certainly not an overexaggeration: the song oozes intensity. It’s completed with an accompanying music video exploring the fluorescent lights and liminal spaces of Cologne’s metro, which is chillingly devoid of any sign of life whatsoever (except a lone pigeon).
Recorded in Cologne, mixed in London by Misha Hering (High Vis, IDLES) and mastered from Portland by Brad Boatright (Off!, Sleep, Stranger Things OST), the band’s collaborators are a reflection of their interlocking contemporaries and influences. Despite the darkness at the core of ‘Overpressure’, it’s a crisply produced track that captures the German quartet’s raw delivery without ever feeling overly crowded. As twinkling chorus-laden guitars continue the song’s relentless drive forwards, there’s space for reflection on its evocative lyrics, which drift from the abstractions of “Lost in a nightmare” to the very real “What do they think whilst they die?”.
Discussing the single’s emergence, TV CULT explained the song’s grim namesake:
“This song began life after learning about blast overpressure injuries in Gazan children caused by the use of 500lb bombs. It then developed into something that expresses our pure anger and disgust at the treatment of all children in war zones.”
The artwork for the single features a singular stem of a Iris heynei wildflower, the Palestinian national flower, with all hues removed, a potent symbol of human suffering and the shortness of life for the most vulnerable amid conflict. The Cologne band join the increasingly numerous clamours of solidarity within their home nation, whilst becoming part a cacophony of international voices using their positions as artists to speak against atrocities in Gaza, from Massive Attack to Macklemore, Kneecap, Fontaines DC and Sam Fender. Brian Eno, host of the landmark Together for Palestine concert at Wembley Arena this Wednesday, has even claimed that the greater risk for some artists’ reputations may now come from complicit silence.
But make no mistake, TV CULT are no strangers to politically charged music. Their 2023 debut LP Colony featured the thunderous track ‘White Riot’, which included lyrics such as “Your white riot’s fucking boring”. Nonetheless, Industry promises to chart darker waters than ever before in the band’s willingness to speak directly against the injustices of our status quo. Their preceding single ‘Crack The Whip’ took listeners into an eerie realm of dark, swirling synths in its condemnation of the European leadership’s moral failure and repressive control. And earlier in May, the band released Industry’s blasphemous lead single ‘Communion’, taking aim at the betrayal, hypocrisy and lies rooted in organised religion and wider Western belief systems. Making waves across the German undergound, ‘Communion’ also received high praise from IDLES bassist Adam Devonshire, good company indeed.
Industry is set for release on the 10th of October, followed by a slew of live shows in Germany, with a portion of the tour’s revenue going towards Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. As further EU dates and UK shows are to be announced in the coming months, expect a hard-hitting slice of post-punk brutalism at a venue near you sooner than you think.
Words by Taran Will
