With a backstory in Scottish indie and Swedish synth, UNIFY SEPARATE have always been a bit different and continue their development following two acclaimed albums ‘First Contact’ and ‘Music Since Tomorrow’.

To cut a long story short, Andrew Montgomery was the front man of GENEVA who were Nude Records label mates to SUEDE while Leo Josefsson is something of a Stockholm synth veteran as a member of LOWE and STATEMACHINE. A 2023 tour opening for German darkwave act DIARY OF DREAMS exposed UNIFY SEPARATE to a new audience and opened up more aesthetic possibilities.

A lot has happened in the world these past few years and the premise of the new ‘Heavy Meta’ EP is to build on the duo’s majestic sense of drama with a deeper and harder sound. This has been achieved with the rousing opener ‘Dark Heaven’ where the bass drum has got some almighty thump. Also thrown in are the ringing metallics of ‘Music For The Masses’ era DEPECHE MODE, the percolating synthbass of ULTRAVOX ‘The Thin Wall’ and even THE SMASHING PUMPKINS when they went briefly electropop on ‘Cyr’.

In a deep swoop of musical styles, the superb ‘DETOX’ initially enters stuttering techno territory, but things are turned on their head with Montgomery’s raw choirboy delivery lifting the tune over a switch to straight fours while the surprise of Josefsson’s distorted vocal cameo leads to a classic Scandi middle eight.

Stark expletive-laden commentary on the phenomenon of psychological manipulation, ‘Gaslighted’ captures its toll on a frustrated Montgomery over a backdrop of throbbing bass, sparkling arpeggios and textural six string with the final declaration that “your problem IS YOU!”

The influence of German IDM trio MODERAT takes hold on the building anguished dance stomper ‘Excuses Excuses’ where “when you try to make everyone happy, someone will get hurt”. Making a fine EP closer, ‘Return To Exile’ drops down to something much starker to recall the emotive ballad ‘Glassy Eyes’ by KITE whose soaring vocal melodies have much in in common with UNIFY SEPARATE.

In an increasingly dystopian world where the two biggest nuclear nations are being led by unhinged egomaniacs, UNIFY SEPARATE have provided their “sanity clause” as they confront an existential crisis that is more than about midlife in the ‘Heavy Meta’ EP, the crowd at this year’s prestigious Amphi Festival in Cologne are going to love it when they perform there in this summer.

‘Heavy Meta’ is released on 11th April 2025 as a digital EP, available direct from https://unifyseparate.bandcamp.com/music

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
9th April 2025