Pain Teens

Beast of Dreams (Trance Syndicate)
by Joshua Brown

Beast of Dreams has the diverse charm that can be counted upon with any Pain Teens recording (this offering is their sixth full-length). They’ve been known to alternate between painting loud landscapes of trancial terror and seducing with slippery songs of dark sexuality. The noisier ones go down your throat like a bitter pill with no water and cottonmouth. The more melodic moments, which emphasize Bliss Blood’s deadpan, poison-doll female vocals, feel like staring at love beads in a doorway after ingesting alcohol and acid. Everywhere on the album can be found Middle Eastern instrumentation which amplifies the “other”-ness. I’d love to hear a Euro-haus mix of “Manouche.”