Songs for Sabotage, from Brooklyn, formed by Swedish composers Lina Sophie (vocals and guitar) and Richey Rose, multi-instrumentalists and producers who bring with them several years of experience in the New York music scene, officially formed in 2019 That same year, due to the spread of COVID 19, he moved to Lexington (Kentucky), Richey Rose's hometown.
It was during this temporary stay in Lexington that SFS began actively working on their debut album, which would be completed in Los Angeles, where the band moved, apparently permanently. In 2020 it was published in honor of the bar where Lina Sophie and Richey Rose met.
“Night of Joy” was a successful product resulting, on the one hand, from the regulatory taste of this New York duo, the sound aesthetics of post-punk and gothic from the 80s, translated into a set of songs elaborated with great mastery, and on the other hand combined with a certain sense of dance floor music resulting from the presence of some influences from the Swedish electropop music scene appreciated by the band.
“Night of Joy” left enormous curiosity in the air about what the next album could be because it was clear that the band was still looking for its most appropriate sound territory without this being a mere search for a comfort sound zone.
This enormous curiosity took around four years to come to fruition. Mostly composed in 2022 and recorded in 2023, not without many of the compositions having previously been tried out in live concerts for various reasons, Songs for Sabotage released its second album entitled “Clean Trauma”, in March 2024.
Clean Trauma”, the second album by New York duo Songs For Sabotage, released in March this year marks a redirection and an evident maturation of the creative process. At first impression it can be said, without much hesitation, that an unequivocal sonic change occurred compared to “Night of Joy” which was their debut album.
“Clean Trauma” moves away from the creative process of “Night of Joy” where the songs were composed with the guitar as the defining element of the entire sound aesthetic, a fact that perhaps did not allow for better exploration of Lina Sophie’s vocal qualities and characteristics.
This separation should not eventually be disconnected from the experiences of the New York duo, who at the time of the release of their first album were still in a phase of mutual experimentation and this is inevitably reflected in “Night of Joy” 'which is in every way a more even in its undeniable musical influences: it sounds more like The Cure, Bauhaus, Joy Division, New Order's “Movement” and The Cardigans than other musical influences suffered by the band that were already present but they were somewhat strangled.
In “Clean Trauma” the songs stop being primarily composed by the guitar and essentially become the territory par excellence of synthesizers. This fact transformed the ambience of the entire album, making it, to use an image I already alluded to, less in-your-face, less immediate, more detailed produced and immensely danceable and organic.
Since their initial compositions, SFS have always shown themselves capable of combining musical genres and creating something distinct. “Clean Trauma” is the perfected result of this SFS characteristic and a lot of experimentation, in live concerts, with the songs that make up the album.
“Clean Trauma” is that album that left the night atmosphere of a bar at 667 Lorimer St., in Brooklyn, to the sunny environment of California and did so in such a masterful way that it was able to transform the theme of traumatic experiences from this New York duo who support the body of songs on this second album in a brilliant clubbing version.
“Clean Trauma” is a very well accomplished album where some glimpses of The Cure still survive but where, in our opinion, the most marked influence of both Depeche Mode (which in itself implies in some way equally assuming what largely influenced them), particularly New Order. For everything that has already been said, an album where SFS's electropop roots are at their best as opposed to their also indisputable post-punk and alt-rock ramifications.
8.3/10