Miracle: The Living Likeness of My Electric Daemon

Depeche Mode have always seemed like an overrated concern to me. We all have bands that we should like, and Depeche Mode probably fits the bill for me. In my opinion, their ideas have always overshadowed the final product. Something that has always seemed too thin, lacking the panache to lift the music to where it needs to go.

So, why pick on Depeche Mode? It’s not picking on them, per se. But listening to Miracle’s Time is the Fire and, well… it’s the song the ’Peche never wrote. On Miracle’s The Living Likeness of My Electric Daemon, Daniel O’Sullivan and Steve Moore reach the core of devotional pop and new-wave. It’s music simply not for these times, and 40 years ago, FM airwaves would have lapped this up. Maybe even O’Sullivan and Moore would have conquered stadiums, backed by a sonic arsenal of musicians that transcended many of the era’s leading voices.

Miracle began their journey in 2011 during O’Sullivan’s spell in Ulver. The Norwegian legends themselves, weaving their own new-wave mastery, firstly with The Assassination of Julius Caesar (2017) and Flowers of Evil (2020). Miracle hit those same frequencies on The Living Likeness of My Electric Daemon. And in doing so, O’Sullivan and Moore deliver the project’s finest effort yet.

O’Sullivan has always revelled in intersecting art-rock with prog and pop sensibilities. His involvement in the early ’00s with Guapo and later alongside Alexander Tucker as Grumbling Fur, moments where the multi-instrumentalist left permanent marks across the U.K. underground landscape. From across the pond, Moore has done something similar, albeit via different routes. His endeavours in synth-wave veterans Zombi, eventually leading him to this year’s collaboration with Emil Amos for the excellent Zone Blue.

Together with O’Sullivan as Miracle, their third full-length release finds the duo nailing new-wave. Those “arms wide and palms to the sky” that O’Sullivan references on opening track, Ambrosia, setting the tone. All funk-laden riffs, hooping bass lines and Moore’s glider-like synths that move through the orbits, with the help of James Plotkin from behind the mastering desk, these songs snap and bite, reaching new levels of urgency.

On Consolamentum Day, Moore’s synths hit look a caffeine rush. And offset by O’Sullivan’s deep melodies, the only logical thing to do is to play it on a loop. Elsewhere, and featuring KEEL-HER’s Rose Keeler-Schaffeler on vocals, the hushed drones of Fluid Window find her and O’Sullivan part with something that sounds more snippets from Philip K. Dick’s secret stash. Later, and The Eye sounds like the basis of one his short stories, and backed by Moore’s multi-layered synth wrangling, suddenly a dystopian dread emerges.

PVC Vest and The Charnel Pit sees the duo exposing more political undercurrents, too. “My enemy friend” (the former), and “Transparent vipers, gold makers and silver liquid swords” (the latter), underpinned by a new sonic aggression that pays homage to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

In between both songs is The Living Likeness of My Electric Daemon’s outlier, Eternalize. A hazy sound bath of new-wave that is all abstract themes, melodies and floaty atmospheres that massage the mind. It’s a nice change up, albeit brief. The Cross, a telling blow where O’Sullivan creates a backdrop akin to 1984. (“The news ammunition the new speak unspoken”).

Thematically it connects to closing song, Cities of the Interior. A place where images of the apocalypse and the future flash before your eyes. It begs the question: are they one of the same? Depending on your mood, perhaps not? It’s the burning question during these precarious times, and while optimism is low, on The Living Likeness of My Electric Daemo, O’Sullivan and Moore do give us some cause for hope with a future that may look different, but at least they forecast the possibility of there actually being one. Miracle in both name and nature? Quite possibly.

The Living Likeness of My Electric Daemo out now via Relapse Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.