Principle Of Pain

Formerly of hardcore heroes Coliseum, Ryan Patterson steered that band towards a direction more post than punk until he dissolved the project to do his own solo thing. With an album cover that nods to New Romantic classics like Ministry’s With Sympathy, his first solo full-length leans heavily on synths and gothic guitars to tell his stories of broken hearts and broken minds. “Love in a Dark Time” is the most worthy of being first and last and always, but it’s filled with fantastic hard-edged eighties throwbacks like “Nadia (Last Year’s Men)” and “Gods in the Dark.”