I’ve taken a bit of a break from posting new music but thought this new Smerz song would be the perfect thing to break my 2021 seal. Smerz made two of my favorite EPs of the 2010s, Have fun and Okey. They make a super-unique breed of bruising electronic music with ice-cold vocals, acting like a piercing stare cutting a whole in your body from across a chaotic dance floor.

The duo just announced their debut album, Believer, coming February 26 via XL Recordings. A few album cuts were released last year, but the title track just dropped and it’s a heavyweight. A rattling, bassy beat acts as the track’s exoskeleton for perhaps the duo’s most upfront vocal performance. A little past the halfway point in the track a flurry of low-toned strings pool in, somewhat replacing the dark bass that started the track in the beginning and provides a huge, cinematic soundstage for the two to build around. If you’ve ben reading this blog for a while, you know that strings are my thing. Hearing some good cello and viola arrangements around this does wonders for me.

I’ve seen Instagram stories from the band working with orchestras and dancers, piquing my interest as to what they have coming soon. I’m hoping for more booming, caustic electronics, cold vocal deliveries and dramatic string accompaniments. I didn’t have any albums coming in 2021 that I was really geeked about yet. Count me in for one now.