Whispering Sons are a Belgian post-punk outfit with a growing reputation based on their captivating live performances and the handful of intense and excellent single and EPs they’ve released since 2015. Their debut album, Image, has just been released on Smile Records in Europe and on Cleopatra Records in the USA.
This long-awaited release looks set to take the Whispering Sons to a whole new level. Image is an atmospheric and claustrophobic collection of songs dealing with the alienation of urban life in the 21st century. Alone is one of its highlights. It features Fenne Kuppens’ emotive vocal over a dramatically pulsating guitar hook, all underpinned by an ominous, descending bassline and stuttering drumbeat.
Alone and the other tracks on the Image LP combine elements of the radio-friendly gothic rock that saw the Sisters of Mercy and The Cure filling arenas in the eighties and nineties with the lower key and more cerebral delights of the cold wave bands that preceded them. The cold wave movement developed in various northern European cities as one of the myriad reactions to the first wave of punk. Bands like Marquis de Sade and Asylum Party embellished their guitars with early synthesizers and electronic drum sounds and took the sound of punk in gloomier and more grown up directions. With their latest release, Whispering Sons have successfully melded darker themes and sonic melodrama with uplifting melodies and accessible hooks. Alone is a prime example of this. With Image the band has released an album of powerful, epic sounding and highly listenable songs with delivered with the highest degree of conviction we’ve heard from them to date.
Having recently played a series of concerts as support for Gang of Four and The Soft Moon, Whispering Sons and are currently on a headlining European tour of their own to promote their debut album. Image is out now.
