Let’s agree less is more because that’s all we may get from emotive recluses Thousandaire. Steeped in the ’90s post-hardcore heyday sound of Unwound and Slint, the band’s lone demo carries a weight and depth many bands simply never achieve. Brooding yet lackadaisical, the demo’s three songs wander from sedated reflection to full-on, cathartic battering ram with organic ease. This may be a result of the band’s motives. Bassist and vocalist Andrew Wiggins (Hawks, Caesium Mine) relayed that the band has no clear plans nor do they desire to muddy their process with obligatory self-promotion. A new album has been recorded, but the trio is in no rush to put it out. If you feel teased, find some solace in the fact that at least someone out there is still making music for themselves. Take it or leave it. – Immersive Atlanta

In music, darkness often devours itself. Those who nosedive down into synthpop’s more perverted forms — industrial, coldwave, darkwave, and all subgenres in between — tend to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the shadows. But that’s precisely what draws devotees in, both the machinists and their audience. The deconstruction of humanity into objective parts, autonomous beats, vocals smeared into alien sneers — these were the tools that proto-industrial types like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle employed to separate themselves from the punk rock ego, the explosion of self. Even in that light, Pyramid Club aren’t just followers of this self-negating cult. Indeed, both members of the clandestine duo have helmed their own projects — Chris Daresta with the cold techno of Anticipation, Matt Weiner with the chrome-clad but buoyant TWINS — and together they run DKA Records, international purveyors of murk. So while “Stay Behind” oozes with all the subversive sludge that devotees to the dark might expect, the Pyramid Club machine burbles and pulses in an uncommonly Technicolor display. The suave gear shift in the middle affirms the expert engineering at work here; Daresta and Weiner may be taking cues from their muses, but they’re clearly spiraling down a tunnel of their own design. -Immersive Atlanta