Alex Okami’s full-length debut album, Strange As Angels, unfolds like a scene set in a decaying Victorian manor—midnight approaching, a thunderstorm raging beyond stained-glass windows. You find yourself in a velvet-draped canopy bed, illuminated solely by the wavering flicker of candlelight on the nightstand, lost within the pages of a gothic vampire novel penned by Polidori or perhaps the lovelorn melancholy of Poe. Every shadow cast seems to come alive, echoing the spectral whispers and romantic decay that seep through each track, which serves as a chapter in the album’s dark narrative.
Across these nine deeply atmospheric songs, Okami intricately explores desire, heartbreak, and darkness, blending his proud Hispanic heritage with post-punk elegance to craft an intoxicating journey into nocturnal melancholy. Okami describes the album as “the culmination of a year’s work revolving around love, loss, lust, and sorrow. Forming my first full-length debut album, Strange As Angels, is a natural progression in production and songwriting into the post-punk genre. The nine songs are a reflection of my most personal experiences and proud Hispanic heritage.”
The opening track, “In the Dark” sets the tone with an insidiously catchy guitar hook, immediately plunging listeners into an electronic underworld where shadowy drum machines pulse and synth lines glow coldly beneath Okami’s velvet croon—echoing prime Depeche Mode at their most seductive and dangerous.
“Telarañas” conjures early Cure and Clan of Xymox atmospherics, weaving anxious synth sirens around serpentine guitar lines. Okami’s evocative Spanish lyrics tighten like silk threads around the listener, ensnaring the senses in a web of romantic fatalism and existential dread, capturing beautifully his emotional entrapment.
“Under My Skin” descends further into candlelit gloom, built around a ritualistic bassline and shimmering guitar work. It’s a song of obsession and loss, lyrically hypnotic as it explores the painful sweetness of doomed intimacy, with Okami’s voice gliding through shadowed melodies.
“Monster” embraces discordance and dread, sounding initially like a haunted, warped tape before shifting into synth-driven incantation. This track documents emotional transformation, an invocation of darker impulses and inner terrors, relentlessly pulling you into its lunar fever dream.
“Vampiros” drips decadent, baroque synth tones and gothic elegance. Its metallic textures and shadowy guitar accents recall Daniel Ash’s more spectral moments, perfectly matched by Okami’s seductive Spanish verses—forming a nocturnal hymn to immortal, blood-tinged passion.
“Gloom Culture” pulses like an anthem for twilight wanderers, channeling the timeless gloom of Germany’s Wave Gotik Treffen. Distant vocals float above anxious synths and layered guitars, delivering a darkly inviting meditation on existential isolation within the community of the lost and longing.
The instrumental interlude “Blood Bond” acts as a sonic bridge—its melancholic piano motif reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails’ haunted minimalism, underpinning the album’s emotional narrative with elegant despair.
“Haunted by You” returns to high gothic form, propelled by a windswept guitar urgency reminiscent of classic Joy Division and The Cure. The lyrics offer spectral poetry, evoking a haunting presence lingering long after love has turned cold—an irresistible elegy of desire and loss.
The closing track, “Twilight,” gently unravels in poetic melancholy, with cascading guitars and swelling synth harmonies that ebb and flow like fading memories. The horns rise, majestic yet mournful, offering a cinematic finale before dissolving back into shadow, sealing the album’s cycle of loss and longing with darkly romantic finality.
Listen to Strange As Angels below:
Strange As Angels is a spellbinding full-length debut—moody, introspective, and masterfully composed, marking Alex Okami as a compelling new voice in contemporary darkwave and post-punk resurgence.
The album will be available digitally, on cassette, and as a limited edition clear vinyl with black splatter starting March 20th. Fans can experience Strange As Angels live at the official album release show on March 22nd in Phoenix, Arizona, featuring performances by Corbeau Hangs, Post Crucifixion, and Le Mal.
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