One record at a time: 562. Soulwax - All Systems Are Lying

After the success of “From Deewee”, I had high hopes for Soulwax’s 2025 album “All Systems Are Lying”. This limited-edition double album, pressed on  transparent red vinyl, certainly looks impressive. Unfortunately, when I first dropped the needle, the music itself left me feeling rather less excited. It was not an immediate disaster, but neither did it deliver the rush I had been expecting.

The album does not really catch fire until the TB-303 begins to burble through the second track, “Run Free”. At that point, the record briefly finds the sort of pulse and electronic mischief I had been waiting for but relinquishes it too readily. “New Earth Time” also has some appealing touches, but too much of the album settles into repetition without creating enough tension, momentum or surprise. I have no objection to repetitive music. Much of the music I love is built around loops and patterns, but repetition only works when the thing being repeated is interesting enough to justify the attention. Here, the grooves are expertly assembled and the production is undeniably polished, yet too often the songs drift past without leaving much behind.

“Gimmie A Reason” is one of the stronger moments, with a catchy melody and synth strings that seem to hang in the ether, giving the track a pleasing sense of atmosphere. It is the sort of song that suggests the album might finally be gathering itself together. Instead, the middle is clogged with disposable avant-garde interludes that feel more like obstacles than experiments. Eventually, we emerge on the other side with more song-based tracks such as “The False Economy” and “Idiots In Love”. These provide some welcome shape, although parts of them sound alarmingly indie and do not contain quite enough electronics for my taste. A couple of shorter tracks bring the set to a close, but they do so in the same underwhelming manner that has come to characterise much of the album. All four sides end in a locked groove, which is a neat physical flourish, even if the music has already spent rather too much time going round in circles.

None of this makes “All Systems Are Lying” a bad record. It is expertly produced, occasionally atmospheric and home to a handful of genuinely good songs. The problem is that the highlights are too few and the material between them rarely demands another listen. Everything sounds carefully constructed, but the album lacks the irresistible hook, strange detail or sudden jolt of energy that might pull me fully into its world. For all its craft, it remains a record I admire more than I enjoy. 2/5