All Systems Are Lying: Soulwax’s High-Stakes Return

The air vibrates with anticipation before the first distorted transmission drops—Soulwax’s latest unveiling already feels like a defiant act. All Systems Are Lying isn’t just an album—it’s a challenge set to modular synths, live drums, and tape loops, one that whispers (then shouts) about a world saturated in simulacra.

They say it’s a “rock album made without any electric guitars,” but Soulwax never plays by convention. It’s as if they lifted the genre’s skeleton and replaced its flesh with circuitry, asking us: how do you rock when the system itself lies?

Fractured Mirrors and Synthetic Pulse

The title track rushes in like a broken broadcast, glitching and urgent—“a fractured mirror held up to modern society on the brink,” as the band puts it. Then Run Free bursts forward, a release valve of euphoria that begs the question: is this rebellion or escape? As one critic observed, “One song leans into the energy of a live band, the other into the pulse of the dancefloor—two sides of the same Soulwax coin.”

It’s a tension that defines every track: urgency tethered to introspection, chaos balanced by structure, a sonic tug-of-war that mimics our own digital-era schizophrenia.

Live, Loud, and Unplugged from Expectation

Soulwax’s mission is clear: capture the essence of live performance without its usual tools. No guitar solos, no rock clichés—just pure, raw energy channeled through synths and acoustic drums. “We wanted to capture the feeling of a band playing electronic instruments—live, loud and loose,” they say. It’s both a manifesto and an experiment: stripped-down yet layered, analog yet digital, intimate yet expansive. It forces us to wonder—what else can be reinvented when we strip the familiar down to raw form?

Their genesis in 1995, the success of Essential in 2018, and their reinvention as 2manydjs—it all culminates here. The brothers’ refusal to rest on past glories is as loud as their three-drummer live setups. This album isn’t comfort—it’s challenge.

As October 17 nears, when All Systems Are Lying drops via Deewee, we’re left with more questions than answers: Can an album built without the structural crutches of guitar reshape our emotional map? Are Soulwax holding up a mirror to society—or distorting it to wake us up?

Their last note might just be our first question: what happens when the system we trusted is the first to lie?