Operating just beyond the crimped fringe in the UK, the electro Goth of Cassandra Complex is much loved on the continent with this album reaching number one recently on the German indie charts where this kind of human meeting machine dance floor scuzz is much more appreciated. The band were formed in the febrile and fertile Leeds post punk scene of the early eighties and were contemporaries to The Sisters Of Mercy and that drum machine combined with gnarly guitar jam that was the then new sound of tech meets flesh that they continue to hone down to this day. Instead of being a tired old shadow of their former selves, the band seem to be replicating stronger and stronger takes on their idiosyncratic grooves and The Plague, which is their first release for 22 years, is a spirited dislocation of the senses that you can dance to. There is something eternally attractive about this melancholic rush aligned to the pummelling dance floor beats – the dark side that you can dance to and the death disco of Cassandra Complex sounds as urgent and vital in 2022 as it did in the early eighties. A very important name to all the fans in the wider dark alternative front, TCC is sounding as if not a day of absence has passed in these 20 years…and now they are knocking again on our door with an album of special dynamics and importance. The first single to appear from the album was ‘The Crown Lies Heavy on the King’ last year, which documented (in October 2020) the possible re-election of Donald Trump, which was still threatening at the time.