God Module
Dark and danceable, God Module are here to help us commune with the air of doom that hangs over this mortal coil. Starting in the early 2000s, God Mod helped pave the way for an industrial techno sound that defined an era’s subculture: They were an answer to the bubblegum pop that was overtaking music, and they’ve stayed true ever since to their unmistakable darkwave goth sound.
Very much in line with their trademark of existential dread, God Module’s 2019 album “The Unsound,” acts almost as a case study on the human condition. The title track declares, “Forever lost, never found/We exist in the frequencies of the unsound.” Throughout the album, dark lyricism and a death-metal vocal style atop fast-paced, adrenalizing beats immerse the listener in a paradoxical vortex of angst.
The project is a brainchild of Jasyn Bangert, an Orlando native and a vivid embodiment of art reacting to its environment. It is only fitting that one of the darkest pockets in all of music was born just miles from the indisputable “happiest place on earth,” Disney World. (Bangert now calls Seattle home.) There is nothing Disney-like about God Module’s output. Their music is thrillingly bleak. Their videos sample ghastly excerpts of obscure horror and gore films.
Whereas God Module on record is largely Bangert’s handiwork, the live show is very much a family affair, aided by longtime collaborator Andrew Pearson and assorted musicians who have cycled in and out of the ensemble. A God Mod live performance shares the wretchedness of their videos, turning the miseries of human experience into an overwhelming electro-goth opera.
True to their oxymoronic nature, there is something suspiciously comforting about this. God Module take a collection of misfit onlookers — random souls roaming through life, individuals in an ever more polarized world — and grabs them by the face, screaming directly that we’re all in this proverbial shit hole together. For better or for worse, it’s at that very moment, that the importance of the overbearing darkness sets in. It tells us that we are the dark allowing for light and the light allowing darkness.
God Module perform 8pm Friday August 16 at Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. godmodule.org ~ Freddie Zandt
