Nu gen duo Alt Blk Era are your nightmare upstairs neighbours. Following on from 2023’s Freak Show EP, sisters Nyrobi and Chaya Beckett-Messam continue to defy conventional expectations of metal, injecting thumping dark- pop, harmonious synths and chaotic EDM into their gritty breakdowns.
Rave Immortal is the perfect soundtrack for the mosher who likes to party, a smorgasbord of blastbeats, bounding hip hop, razor-sharp riffs – anything to get people moving, basically. After months spent in bed before she was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, Nyrobi was desperate to express herself - and sprinkling emotive alt rock with rip-roaring electronics was the perfect way to go about it.
There’s a burning lust for life to Rave Immortal, an exhilarating yell of defiance. It’s the sound of celebration, whether it’s in the moshpit or on the dancefloor, or ideally both. The rip-roaring Run Rabbit plugs into the crossover mayhem of The Prodigy and Pendulum, My Drummer’s Girlfriend leans into devilishly cool electro- rock, and Catch Me If You Can is tinged with a haunting, gloomy hint of symphonic metal.
Throughout, tracks bristle with a desire to move. While Come On Outside’s grunge-tinted riffs capture the pain of isolation, Come Fight Me For It feels like a caged animal unleashed, bounding loose on a wave of frazzled electronics and confrontational screeching. Elsewhere, Upstairs Neighbours is a solid gold rager, each order to ‘JUMP!’ impossible to defy when paired with gloriously infectious breakbeats.
Alt Blk Era’s refusal to stick to one sonic lane will undoubtedly put some people off – that’s their loss. With Rave Immortal, the Beckett-Messam sisters have lived up to the promise of that album title, finding joy in release and forging new paths. This feels like the beginning of something special.
