Leather Temple

French darksynth maestro Franck Hueso announces his return to cyberpunk with an appropriately bombastic fanfare. After several experiments with eighties-style pop and metal, Leather Temple ditches the vocals and the rock exoskeleton in favor of the sweeping synth bangers he excels at. It’s still part of the Leather Teeth conceptual trilogy: his recurring anti-hero, serial killer rock star Bret Halford, wakes up in the future after getting cryogenically frozen and must become the hero that the dystopia needs by taking down a tyrannical tech oligarch. Mostly through an ultra-violent death race, if the accompanying videos are any indication. From the moment the rubber tires hit the neon-soaked streets, it never lets up. This feels like the soundtrack to the most awesome cyberpunk action movie we never got back in the eighties. Darksynth seems to have mostly stagnated as a genre; the biggest artists moved to other styles and the rest just never quite had what it takes. Songs like “Neon Requiem” and “Speed or Perish” remind us why this style thrilled in the first place. White knuckles the whole time.