Holy Death Temple is the newest vanguard turning existential dread into a dancefloor ritual. With their second single, Survey Says, Seattle’s goth-dance insurgents offer a blistering slice of synth-laden nihilism that skewers America’s sociopolitical decay beneath the cold, glossy veneer of a corrupted game show. This caustic track delivers a propulsive jolt, challenging listeners to twist and writhe through the wreckage of modern collapse.
The trio’s style fuses the icy gloom of Joy Division and Bauhaus with the irreverent rage of Sex Pistols, further electrified by the digital decadence reminiscent of Daft Punk and Justice. Here, rebellion and revelry entwine, disguising raw catharsis within irresistibly danceable hooks. Rejecting the bass guitar entirely, Holy Death Temple deploys seismic synth-bass vibrations that underpin precise guitar work and relentless drum rhythms, creating space for the band’s signature hooks to surge forward. Amy Tung-Barrysmith (synth) and Jon Barrysmith (drums), known for their doomy tenure in Year of the Cobra, propel the track into a tightly wound tempest of energy.
Survey Says critiques society’s crumbling foundations through the allegory of a televised spectacle, peeling away façades to expose the malignant mechanisms of manipulation and greed. Lyrics call starkly to “burn it down,” an incendiary refrain punctuating the futility inherent in competitions orchestrated by entrenched systems of oppression. Frontman Bryan Edward envisioned Holy Death Temple as a visceral reaction against the suffocating seriousness, channeling righteous fury into kinetic revelry.
“Media and politics profit from division while claiming to serve the people,” says Edward, who started the project after leaving a post-hardcore band where the message was lost by being “too serious, and no fun.” The song’s premise, social conflict as a ratings-driven game, builds to one final answer we can all agree on: “just burn it down.”
The accompanying video underscores this commentary by assembling an unflinching montage of real-world clips (and moments from classic game show Family Feud) transforming mundane news cycles into a concentrated barrage of unsettling truth. Ironically, the band encountered censorship issues for merely curating publicly available footage, inadvertently affirming their critique of mediated reality.
“The news cycle moves so fast and we’re so overstimulated that we forget or become numb to the horrible shit that’s happening, so it can be jarring when seen all at once,” Edward remarks. “That’s kind of the point of the video and the YouTube trust and safety team just proved it.”
Watch Survey Says below, and surrender to the subversive allure of Holy Death Temple’s provocative pulse.
Listen to Survey Says below and order the single here.
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