For more than a decade, Austin's Street Sects have been making extreme, intense underground music about the depths of the human experience. The duo's grinding industrial post-punk doesn't seem to fit into any particular scene or movement. They're a singular project, and they confront darkness and desperation in their own singular way. In recent years, Street Sects have been releasing music a song or two at a time, and they've slowed down with those releases lately. They haven't come out with a new track since 2022's "X Amount" or a full-length album since The Kicking Mule in 2018. But later this year, Street Sects will release two full-length albums on the same day -- one under their own name and another under their new Street Sects alter-ego.
According to a press release, Street Sects recently broke up temporarily, after vocalist Leo Ashline, a recovering crack addict, went through a relapse. Ashline recovered, and the duo got back to work. The new Street Sects album Dry Drunk is all about that experience, and it's rendered through the group's harsh experimentalism. Under their Street Sex name, meanwhile, Ashline and multi-instrumentalist Shaun Ringsmuth get into friendlier, dancier, more melodic sounds. They recorded both Dry Drunk and the Street Sex album Full Color Eclipse with Chelsea Wolfe collaborator Ben Chisholm as producer, and they're both coming out on HEALTH's new label COMPULSION.
In a press release, Shaun Ringsmuth says, "Ben [Chisholm] brought a fresh perspective that revived the process and saved the band in many ways. Since Ben had no history with the band, his contributions gave the project a new perspective, revitalizing the approach, and we found ourselves communicating easily." Ashline and Ringsmuth preview the two albums with one song apiece from both. On "Spitting Images," Street Sects tell a story of personal degratation over grinding synths. "Turn Blue," meanwhile, is a gothed-out, pounding club jam. As different as they sound, though, you can tell that they come from the same people. Here's what Ashline says about both tracks:
BLOCKQUOTE:
"Spitting Images" is about a man who is in the absolute depths of Dry Drunk Syndrome. He hates himself, and he projects that hatred onto his family in the worst possible way. One thing I wanted to express on Dry Drunk as a whole was a kind of ugly, belligerent rage, and this character embodies that. He is stupid and hateful. He might have gotten sober, but he hasn’t changed. Not counting the exaggerated violence, I have been this person at times. I think many people in recovery have.
"Turn Blue" is kind of a comical, hedonistic anthem. It’s about letting go of repression, self consciousness, and crippling insecurities. It’s about submitting to your basest urges without shame and feeling a weight lift off of you as a result. It’s a little dark, but it’s also kind of joyful, in a slightly insane, ridiculous way. Lyrically, I’ve never written anything like this before. I had a blast working on this song, and that’s not often the case when I’m writing.
Street Sects have shared both "Spitting Images" and "Turn Blue" in the form of a single animated video from Ben Carlson; check it out below.
Dry Drunk and Full Color Eclipse are both out 8/15 on COMPULSION.
