“I really wanted to make an album that was a love letter to old-school goth music and post-punk.” That’s what Perturbator mastermind James Kent tells Apple Music when asked about the inspiration behind his fifth album. “I wanted to make an album that would be more melody-based, less hard and aggressive than my previous works.” As such, Lustful Sacraments bathes in the dark and infectious sounds of ’80s luminaries like Depeche Mode, Killing Joke, and DAF while exploring lyrical themes of dissatisfaction, addiction, and self-destruction. “Before this album, I would make music about sci-fi and dystopian stuff,” the French musician says. “With this one, I wanted to do something more personal, more based on human emotions. It’s more of an intimate album that maybe more people can relate to.” Below, Kent comments on each track.
“Reaching Xanadu”
“It's a very short track, but it has a very complex drum pattern, and it sounds a bit technical in terms of rhythm. I wanted to make a bridge from my previous album, which was very complex and industrial-sounding, and almost trick the listener into thinking that it’s going to be more of the same. At the end, I put the sound of breaking glass to symbolize the switch of genres to post-punk.”
“Lustful Sacraments”
“This is the first one that I wrote for the album, and it's one that I've been working on for almost three years now. It was my first attempt at trying to find my footing in this post-punk goth music genre—to find what sort of drum patterns they use, the snare sound, the guitars. Basically, I wanted this song to be kind of the flagship of the album. When you listen to it, you know what the rest of the album is going to sound like.”
“Excess”
“The yelling parts are from Maniac 2121, who is a very good friend of mine from a long time ago. I don't have a good yelling voice myself, so it sounded a bit weak when I did it. But he gave it his all, so I preferred to take his yelling part. This is one of the fastest-paced tracks on the album, in terms of BPM. And the lyrics for this are pretty blunt. I think they drive home the overall theme of the album, about dissatisfaction, addiction, and self-destruction.”
“Secret Devotion” (feat. True Body)
“It's definitely a love letter to Depeche Mode. It has a lot of the same very dry percussion and a DX7 synthesizer sound, like a very cold-sounding piano. I wasn’t sure if it would make the cut for the album at first, because it sounded a bit weird. But then I sent it to the guys in Truebody, because I could really hear the vocals of Isabel [Moreno-Riaño] in my head when I listened to it. I asked them to do something with it, and they asked if they could add more stuff—not just vocals. I told them to go for it, and I just really love the results.”
“Death of the Soul”
“At first, the album had eight tracks, and I felt it was very short. And also, I also wanted to explore a little bit more of an EBM or Berlin techno type of style—similar to DAF or, more recently, Boy Harsher. So I started this track with a very steady and simple bass and drum combo. Then I asked Belial to put vocals on it. She’s a good friend of mine, and she’s Russian, so I thought, ‘Let’s do a fucking track in Russian.’ She’s just talking, not singing, but it came out very cool.”
“The Other Place”
“With a lot of the tracks, you can almost pinpoint a band that I got inspired by. With this one, it was Killing Joke—the Night Time album. It's also the one that I decided to not put any vocals on, because the track already has a lot of things going on. I put a lot of guitars on this one and changed the rhythm and stuff like this. I can also say that the title was inspired by a Twilight Zone episode called ‘A Nice Place to Visit,’ which is about a guy who dies and thinks he’s in heaven but it turns out he’s in ‘the other place.’”
“Dethroned Under a Funeral Haze”
“People tell me that the title sounds like a Darkthrone reference. I do see that, but I didn’t do it on purpose at all. At first the track was just called ‘Dethroned,’ but then there’s this art book I have called Under the Funeral Haze. I really liked the title and wanted to use it. I just wanted to make something slow and doomy, but with synthesizers. And then my friend Maniac 2121 wanted to put some vocals on it. It turns out he has a very good singing voice, so I decided to keep it.”
“Messalina, Messalina”
“This is the second fast track on the album. I felt like a lot of the tracks previously were in the same sort of tempo range or going a bit slower. So just before the finale I wanted to make a track that would be very typical Perturbator—very fast, very energetic, with a lot of distorted synths. I think it's the only track where I have that. I did the vocals on this one, and I basically wanted it to be the climax of the album in a way—the most hard-hitting, so that the track after could be more of a slow burner.”
"God Says" (feat. Hangman's Chair)
“Hangman’s Chair are a doom band from Paris. When I started this track, I was supposed to do it with Farida [Lemouchi] from The Devil’s Blood, my favorite band of all time, so I made it with her vocals in mind. So the guys from Hangman’s Chair heard the track because we always hang out together, and they wanted to do something on it. It works perfectly because the singer has a similar vibe to Farida. It very quickly became one of my favorites, along with ‘Dethroned.’”