Last Wars – Queen City Sounds and Art

The artwork for the forthcoming Last Wars album Escaper has that brutalist architecture style that you would expect to see in an update of the Duke Nuke ‘Em video game or an even more dystopian Grand Theft Auto game set in the future anticipated by Escape From New York or The Terminator. Lead single “Attrition” has a menacing urgency with distorted synths and Vocoder, fantastic electronic bass and an almost impressionistic melody like bursts of joy escaping in through the emotion dampening fields imposed by a technocratic oligarchy to maximize labor efficiency. Musically it makes one think about what might happen if Trans Am and Chrome collaborated on a piece of music to give it a retrofuturist flavor imbued with a spirit of rebellion. The song makes you want to see the movie or read the graphic novel that could have spawned it. Listen to “Attrition” on Spotify and follow Last Wars at the links below. Escaper releases on September 15, 2024 on digital download, streaming and as a limited edition vinyl LP.

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With “Pale Fire” Last Wars seem to be tapping into some of that dark, moody vibe of A Place to Bury Strangers by way of synthwave inspired by Trans Am and Holy Fuck. The driving, distorted synth line and shuffling percussion that pushes the song at a headlong pace with whispery vocals painting for us an imagery of a decaying and fragmenting civilization and its impacts for one’s own life and psyche, not some abstract political commentary. When the guitar comes in it casts tonal fire against the dusky and fuzzy drone wall of electronic sounds like Bernard Sumner putting in some choice licks on a long lost Giorgio Moroder song for a soundtrack for an abandoned movie version of a William Gibson story. It’s a fierce yet fragile song that seems to draw out an accurate depiction of the fraught times we face when shit is getting real, Don’t Look Up is only satire because a comet isn’t coming to destroy us all but climate change is, and panicked nihilism is just not an option. Listen to “Pale Fire” on Soundcloud and connect with Last Wars at the links below.