‘The Last of Men’, the new single from The SPKtR is out now from thespktr.bandcamp.com and selected streaming platforms, and the video has premiered exclusively today via Post-punk.com in New York, with a great write up from Alice Teeple: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism — Graeme Revell Returns with The SPKtR in Video for “The Last of Men”
“…along comes The Last of Men, and… kicks the case open and lets the sparks hit the carpet. This single arrives with the stink of machine oil, grave philosophy, gallery provocation, and club-floor panic, all at once, and it has the rare good sense to sound like a threat worth taking seriously. The Last of Men hits hard in the way it treats technology as contamination, extension, seduction, and diagnosis in the same breath… The SPKtR drags the form back into a zone of risk. There are guitars in here that feel rusted and rabid, electronics that slash and seethe, a cinematic sense of ruin that makes perfect sense coming from the man who scored The Crow, The Craft, From Dusk till Dawn, and Sin City. Yet the track sounds more interested in pressure points than polished authority… moves like a system examining itself in a cracked mirror, all pressure, abrasion, and synthetic dread, with enough muscle in its frame to keep the theory from floating away into seminar-room vapour… The theme is perhaps absurdly big – and more than a little controversial, but SPK were never a group for tasteful moderation. That idea courses through the single like poison in a bloodstream. The song stares straight at the collapsing fantasy of human centrality and finds terror, possibility, and a cold grin waiting on the other side.”
– Alice Teeple, Post-punk.com, USA
Our thanks also to the good people at Aural Aggravation, Big Takeover Magazine, and our friend Ilker at Regen Mag for supporting the new release today. A few key extracts from their pieces are below, but please do follow the hyperlinks for the full articles.
“…a chilling slice of dark, industrial-strength electronica. The vocals are heavily processed, low, ominous, doomy in a filmic sense, a shade Darth Vader, the lyrics hinting that the future is a synergy of man and machine… Not so long ago, this was purely the domain of science fiction. But of course, science fiction in its purest form takes emerging science and uses it to create a fictional narrative based on potential scenarios… If the song itself sounds like the end of days, the accompanying video… is truly apocalyptic. And it’s AI generated, of course, as is, quite clearly, the single’s artwork. Whatever your stance on AI, there’s no question that it’s visually striking, and works as an accompaniment to the audio… ‘The Last of Men’ is a striking release, and a powerful return for SPK, with the new SPKtR moniker denoting the start of a new era. How it will unfold remains to be seen, and will likely be interesting. All we can do is watch this space…”
– Christopher Nosnibor, Aural Aggravation, UK
“Feeling like a missive from a non-human overlord, it is a tight mesh of electronic onslaughts and brutal beats, a meeting of man and machine, artifice and artistry, intensity and intellect. Oddly danceable, strangely welcoming and yet feeling disarmingly not of this world. And if the title feels apocalyptic, this is not a celebration of the destruction of our species, but more heralding the demise of a certain type of human behaviour or an unhealthy collective attitude, one of importance, dominance, something apart from the planet. It’s a warning and a reminder that perhaps a new sense of humility and integration back into the only planet we have ever called home is the only way to ensure our continuation. And, as messages go, “The Last of Men” and with it The SPKtR’s return to the sonic fray couldn’t have come at a more timely juncture.”
– Dave Franklin, The Big Takeover, USA
“Arriving nearly 40 years since the enigmatic yet pioneering industrial entity’s final tour, the track brings the group’s sound firmly into the present – scorching percussive and electronic abrasions and a grim vocal delivery of a bold manifesto of humanity’s frailty and precarious relationship with rapidly advancing technologies. The track addresses not the end or extinction of man, but that of human sovereignty and the myth of exceptionalism while entrusting itself – “cognition, memory, and desire” – to systems it does not fully grasp.”
– Ilker Yücel, ReGen Mag, USA