Shirtless - Empty Powers (2026)

Chicago & NYC’s incandescent industrial heritage scalds to touch on a mighty debut album by Shirtless, a new trio helmed by Jonathan Krohn (Stave, Talker) and voiced by Pissed Jeans’ Matt Korvette & poet Alina Pleskova, essential listening for all and any disciples of Pan Sonic x Alan Vega’s VVV, Big Black, Regis, Karim Maas.

Downwards are not fucking about with ‘Empty Powers’, a brutal debut statement of intent wrought from barbed power electronics and ‘fessing bleak internal monologues on the state of modern America. Working within ascetic limitations key to Regis’s label, the trio resonate a dense inner city angst transcending sounds associated with the ‘80s emanations of Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio in the Chi, the ‘90s NYC meetings of Pan Sonic & Suicide’s Alan Vega, and the contemporary Brum prowl of Karl O’Connor and his squad of wrong ‘uns, offset with a darkly sexy sidespin and taste for theeeeee saltiest distortion they can call their own.

Far from Krohn’s first Downwards rodeo - he’s made numerous jags as Male, Talker, and Stave over the past decade - it’s arguably his best, detectably kneading inspiration from a line of work for Bristol D&B mutant Karim Maas (UVB-76) into a slew of pendulous, pugilist, and ruff hewn swag that should get moodier buggers licking their lips. Held in balance with a fierce feel for air-shuddering industrial texture and discord, the results speak in a mix of direct urges and more oblique code that’s best understood when felt with requisite amplification - and trust it can go all the way up without fatigue.

In their lurching procession from the drunken slug and pebbledash sleet of ‘Empty Powers’ to a beat-less, bittersweet tonal hymn ‘Wave Logic’, Korvette brings a taut industrial discipline throughout, at best on the squashed half step of ‘Sit on the Flag’ like some lost Neubauten x Burial ace, and cooking thru the white-out blizzard ‘Paper Body, Crumpled’, or properly giving it some on ‘Standing Under the Pinata’, with Alina Pleskova an ideal counterpoint in the restive shudder of a ‘Loose Grip (Eclipse Season)’ edging on shoegaze bliss-out, or sharing Factory Floor-esque warehouse space in ‘Void Avoidant.’