Beauty is Lies is the ambitious, atmospheric new album from Nottingham, UK-based duo Radium88. Reckoning with the emerging cultural embrace of artificial creations, despite its lack of organic emotion and creativity, Jema Davies and Tim Thwaites blend dense, futuristic textures with moments of lush beauty. This record explores poignant thematic commentary amidst sophisticated ambient-electronic soundscapes.

Spacey synth arpeggios lead an introspective immersion on opening track “Behold!” — where poetic vocal prowess melds with escalating electronics, ruminations on prevalent machinery and “1’s and 0’s flicker across eyelids” present a futuristic realm with robots at the helm. It’s an atmospheric scene-setter that moves seamlessly into “In Transit, In Motion (planetary),” resembling a space opera in its effervescent synth swells and playful trickling, sounding like a cross of Air and Pet Shop Boys in its dreamy vocal work and caressing synths. The opener’s ominous descriptions excel, as does this track’s more anthemic pop glow, firmly showcasing Radium88’s eclectic range.

Elsewhere, “Blindside (simplified)” moves with a bursting art-pop energy, maneuvering amidst buzzy synths and playful rhythms in resembling Plastic Beach-era Gorillaz in its colorful synth bounciness and ruminations on a world that’s fluid and complex. The epic “Until One Lonely Starless Night” also stands out, steadily revealing a gorgeously serene production with elegant piano and spacey synth infusions alongside spoken-word vocals depicting a mixture of blissful imagery and machinated change. A distortion-ready second half injects a rock-minded vigor, again representative of the project’s knack for turning dreamy, understated intrigue into invigorating shifts. Beauty is Lies is a stirring success of an album from Radium88.

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“Blindside (simplified)” and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.

We discovered this release via MusoSoup.

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