Synthwave, sometimes referred to as outrun music, had a big moment in the 2010s, both in and outside of heavy music circles. A leading voice of the movement within the metal scene is Carpenter Brut. They debuted with the album Trilogy in 2015, which gained attention alongside Perturbator’s Dangerous Days as an essential release. Their followup, 2018’s Leather Teeth, shot them to even greater heights. Now, a decade after the synthwave movement’s heyday, they’re returned with their fourth full-length record, Leather Temple, bringing the ending of the Leather trilogy (which consists of Leather Teeth, Leather Terror, and Leather Temple).
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Synthwave is already a genre that is hand-in-hand with retrofuturism, an artistic movement that desires to return to images of the future as depicted in earlier eras. Modern retrofuturism has been entrenched in the 1980s for more than a decade in all aspects of culture, from the popularity of Stranger Things to Darkthrone writing “I Am the Graves of the 80s” in 2010. Electric Light Orchestra penned “Ticket to the Moon,” a song about 80s nostalgia, in 1981 when the decade was only just beginning.
Carpenter Brut takes the retrofuturist undertones already present in the style and makes them far more overt. Their vision of the future is not a bright, hopeful one, but something darker and dystopian. They intended Leather Temple to be the soundtrack to an imaginary film from the ‘80s depicting a future ruled by a despotic character called Iron Tusk. Appropriately, the album feels like Carpenter Brut’s most grandiose yet. It absolutely does a soundtrack’s job of creating a mood. The synthesizer arrangements are heavy, massive, and extremely flashy, like a vast, empty, abandoned warehouse playing home to a neon gothic rave. Deep growling saw-wave synthesizers provide the foundation for the more sparkling sounds to play on top of. Pieces such as “Iron Sanctuary” use these instrumentations to bring forth images of large, echoing industrial spaces and grimy, dust-filled skies, reminiscent of Blade Runner. Others tracks like “Tracks like “Start Your Engines” and “Speed or Perish” establish a breakneck pace with a glitz and glamor that conjures idealized images of sleek and powerful muscle cars of the 80s.
Moments of hopes dot Leather Temple through its story, wherein its protagonist Bret Halford, a human-turned-cyborg, leads a revolution against the chains of the tyrant. For example, “Neon Requiem” offers a heroic motif, indicating when Halford is at his lowest point, finally begins to make progress in their struggle, again using one of the most iconic symbols of the ‘80s (neon) to do it. Meanwhile, the album’s denouement, “The End Complete”, closes things out on an uplifting and triumphant note, underscoring a victory for Halford.
Overall, Leather Temple succeeds at being a soundtrack, which is both a strength and a weakness. It fits well into the soundscape while you fill in the images of its story. Each song works as a great mood piece for its intended part of the narrative. However, the flip side of that is that there aren’t as many hooks as one might like. It fades into the background and doesn’t have quite the same immediacy of previous Carpenter Brut albums. That’s not inherently bad, but it makes Leather Temple a little more difficult to dig your teeth into. Ultimately, Carpenter Brut are still one of the heavyweights of the synthwave genre, and perhaps even the top dog, given how some of their peers have fallen off in the last few years.
–Kevin Zecchel
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Leather Temple is available now.
