The clouds are now gray and peeling
Our fears will erase feeling
The sky will replace ceilings
Chicago’s The Gothtones announce a new single, The Two of Us, from their self-titled fourth album, a dreamy track that slides into focus like a ghostly transmission from a lost world, drenched in post-punk unease and subtle darkwave textures. Jerret S. Cortese’s vocals and angular guitar play off Ann Filmer’s spectral tones in a tense yet strangely airy dialogue, reminiscent of Interpol’s precise emotional detachment and the spectral gloom of Joy Division and Magnetic Fields. Underneath, Doug Patinka anchors the mood with bass lines that pulse gently, threading a path through bleak lyrical visions.
Despite exploring the quiet horror of nuclear annihilation, The Two of Us remains curiously buoyant. The lyrics paint an unsettling tableau: cracked ceilings mimicking broken skies, peeling paint symbolizing emotional collapse and romantic illusions unraveling into existential solitude. Yet, somehow, the music rises, airy and effervescent. There’s an elusive charm as male and female vocals delicately intertwine, offering glimpses of warmth amidst the song’s atmosphere of cold, anxious isolation.
But the deceptive tranquility soon collapses. In its closing moments, the track splinters into a surreal sonic breakdown, unraveling into dissonance and peculiar noise. It’s a striking shift; a delirious unraveling mirroring the chaotic uncertainty of the song’s nuclear dread. A timely track, indeed.
Accompanied visually by a lyric video featuring thermal imagery of two languid cats, the juxtaposition feels fittingly surreal, a quietly absurdist flourish amid catastrophe. The Two of Us stands as a striking piece of spectral pop….simultaneously delicate and ominous, fraught with apocalyptic beauty.
Watch the lyrics video for “The Two Of Us” below:
The Gothtones’ Woodlawn Green was released in 2011, followed by three full-length studio albums: After Dark (2016), Dovetails for Noddy (2019), and Love Gets Your Ghost (2020). Their fourth album, Gothtones, was released in May 2025 on the band’s own Funeral Cake records.
Listen to The Two of Us via Bandcamp below and order the single here.
Follow The Gothtones:
Or via: