Things are moving fast for Conor Knowles, the tormented soul behind Dancing Plague. Since the late 2010's, he has been releasing one track after another, imposing his icy minimalism and sepulchral tone single after single. With the album Elogium barely a year and a half old, he's back to make the bats dance with Domain, his first release on the Artoffact Records label, which describes it as ‘a personal exorcism’ and 'searing dive into the emotional wreckage of identity, loss, and existential disillusionment'.... we couldn't wait!
From the outset, Dancing Plague plunges us into familiar territory: With You I Am Nothing (nothing to do with Placebo, except for a vitriolic nihilistic response!) returns to the simplicity that makes Dancing Plague so effective and vocals deeper than death that would bring nightfall even to the sun itself. Nevertheless, we appreciate a new harshness, an EBM binary in the rhythm that gives Dancing Plague an extra dose of intensity. Knowles laments, ‘if this is heaven, drag me to hell’ before spitting out the title of the song. We are obviously won over by this very straightforward approach, and the monolithic vocals allow just the right amount of theatricality to filter through, confronting introspection and frontality.
Dancing Plague doesn't mess around. The melodies are simple but powerful, the lyrics recited like slogans, true gothic punchlines that we'd love to print on stickers to decorate our coffins. We can imagine the artist staring at us with his dark gaze, there in the shadows: it's impossible not to find something irresistible in these heightened torments. Dancing Plague's music may be cold and rigid, drawing a form of rigour from the past, but we nevertheless appreciate the evolution towards more present atmospheres and melodies. Knowles varies the pleasures and, while he doesn't cheer up one iota, he nevertheless seems to enrich his compositions while showing new ambitions. It's broader, richer.
Domain is incredibly effective, with every track a potential hit. Has the Portland-based artist ever sounded so sinister as on Senseless or I Used to Feel, with its ghostly reverb from beyond the grave? And yet, how are our booty-shakers supposed to resist Turn to Dust or Impostor? This brings to mind the epidemic of dancing mania, or choreomania, which gives the project its name: in the 15th century, in Alsace and Germany, 'between 50 and 400 people took to dancing for weeks, some so monomaniacally that only death would have the power to intervene', according to Wikipedia. We suspected Knowles of being some kind of spectre or immortal vampire, and now we have proof: he was already training his victims to WGT, Amphi Festival and M'Era Luna several centuries ago!
There is a paradox with Domain that makes it very endearing... Between its more modern but equally cold industrial textures, its nihilism and dripping despair, and its utterly dark desperate and threatening vocals, Dancing Plague never lightens up. Yet Dancing Plague also makes us want to shake our bodies, even if we're dead inside... and almost ends up exuding a kind of irresistible incongruity with its imperturbable sulky pout. Yeah, we're dark, hope is dead, the future is bleak, we're just ridiculous, overly talkative pieces of meat gesticulating pathetically. We're sad, we don't feel like leaving the crypt this morning. But with Dancing Plague, what a blast we're having!
