You take the pleasure and the pain we’re holding
It brings me back to the holy one
I saw the devil and he told me everything
So take these chains and we’ll come undone
From the frostbitten fringes of Toronto, Modele (Chris Huggett and Nathan Wiltshire) serve up post-punk with bite and bite-back. Their latest release, Pleasure For The Holy, slinks through smoke-thick basslines and synths that smirk, channeling the decadent disillusionment of ‘80s new wave. It’s mood with muscle, swagger steeped in static: proof that gloom can still groove when dressed to kill. Their sound is akin to kindred spirits The Church, Simple Minds, and Depeche Mode with a more subdued oeuvre.
The album opens with the atmospheric, piano-centric instrumental The Lightbringer before launching into their debut single 1001 – a tune that simmers rather than soars; a hushed hymn that drips with delay and devotion. Think Iggy Pop’s late-night croon colliding with ABC’s artful elegance, a sigh from Icehouse wrapped in silken gloom. There are echoes of Echo, a murmur of Bauhaus, but the shimmer belongs to the guitars and synths, strung out like neon tears, and vocals that slide across the surface like satin on skin. A track tailor-made for the twilight moment in a John Hughes film: the slow dance, the hard truth, the half-smile goodbye. Yet behind its glassy glaze, something bruises.
Love seeps away like a whisper in the wind. Beneath the weight of heartache, hope softly hums, while “Forever Sacred” waltzes with dissolution, its bouncy bass rhythm intertwined with a serpentine new wave guitar melody. Purity wanes and promises tarnish; yet, the artistry of these lyrical messages cushions the sting of nostalgia. What once felt transcendent now drips through the fractured hourglass of memory, as desire curdles and faith unravels.
Another of the album’s brilliant singles, Into Your Eyes purrs with poise. A new-wave sourjourn wrapped in a ‘60s bravado and post-punk romanticism jangles, grooves, and glances across dance floors both real and imagined. The vocals fall like dusk: warm, wistful, a little dangerous, but tempered with a wistful tenderness imbued by the glowing harmonies. Beneath the warmth of the track’s production lies a tale of longing, liberation, and the electric hush of finally feeling at home. It’s not just a song. It’s a sanctuary. A soft place to land when the night overstays its welcome.
At this point, the album takes a darker turn, blending synth-pop and alt-rock vibes reminiscent of early 90s Depeche Mode. Its dynamic range unfolds dramatically in “You Are My Sin,” a haunting exploration of sacrifice, submission, and sacred obsession. In this intoxicating ritual, pleasure and pain intertwine, where divinity elegantly sways with desire. Love transforms into a liturgy, and sin becomes a sanctuary. Chains rattle, control shifts, and the body serves as both altar and offering in this fervent communion of flesh and faith.
With its alt-rock synths, drums, and melodies,Tirana continues walking in Depeche Mode’s footsteps as a soft-burning psalm of departure and return. It traces a journey through ruin and renewal, capturing feelings of longing and light. Once bound by obsession, the voice rises reborn, revisiting faded photographs and star-lit signs leading back to a place (real or remembered) called Tirana. Holiness is offered like a gift, and freedom is found in the fire. Love lingers quietly, glowing beneath an endless sun.
With a brighter and more idyllic sound reminiscent of jangly, dream pop output from bands like The Cure, The Ocean Blue, and New Order, “Here On The Other Side” serves as a journey through doubt and eventual deliverance. The lyrics navigate the space between ruin and reckoning. The protagonist, shaken and exposed, begins to reclaim a fractured identity, moving beyond uncertainty into something quieter and more surreal. The water calls, the sand pulls away, and memories blend into myths. Although heaven seems just out of reach, on this other side—weightless and wordless—it finally feels alright.
The darkness returns with Always Be True, a song that emerges like a wallflower into the cascade light. It is a tribute to old-school post-punk’s exuberant gloom—a reminder of notes scrawled on the back of a torn 1982 gig flyer—with a relentless bassline supporting vocals that hint at hidden depths behind every word. The track’s shifting tempo orbits a cautious riff while its lyrics sketch a quiet longing, portraying beauty as a reflection on water—an ideal perpetually just beyond reach. In this space, contrasts soften as warmth melds with cool reserve and moments of clarity mingle with shadow, leaving us in a state of deliberate waiting for that rare moment when perception and reality converge.
In the penultimate track, Dangerous Girl, the terrain descends into perditious seduction with a sound that feels like a parallel universe where Ian McCulloch is fronting a Violator-era Depeche Mode, punctuated by echoes of mid-’80s Simple Minds and an unapologetic Cure-style guitar riff. Here, a boy who has long awaited a sensation draped in danger and wonder meets a girl—wild-eyed, half-real, and utterly untouchable. Her spoken word interlude slices through the ambient haze of the song, dragging him down her shadowed path. In that incendiary moment, love—or something akin to it—is wrapped in fire, a risk he willingly embraces time and again.
As the album draws to a close, the title track pulses to life with nostalgic drum machines at its helm, melding new, dark, and cold wave into an alt-rock hymn of longing and illusion. Echoing through the corridors of the soul, vocals deliver lyrics that chart a restless search for purity—freedom, love, release—while the quest itself becomes a labyrinth of doubts: What is sacred? What is real? What remains unattainable? Salvation is withheld, faith contorts, and pleasure is a luxury for the chosen few. In this interplay of contradictions—sacred yet selfish, simple yet unknowable—the yearning transforms into a delicate pursuit, as ephemeral as chasing light through stained glass. The post-punk guitar work, evocative of Kiss Me-era Cure and Script of the Bridge Chameleons, punctuates the track with an exquisite blend of reverence and defiance, leaving an indelible mark on the listener’s soul.
Listen to Pleasure For The Holy below and order the album here.
Modele will be opening for ACTORS on May 3rd at Lee’s Palace in Toronto. In the meantime, stay tuned for more to come from Modele.
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