All Systems Are Lying

Brimming with energy, twisted with suspicious social commentary, and offset by their typified laidback vocal delivery, their new offering is everything you would expect and want from a new Soulwax album.

[Soulwax has] always been great at eroding the lines between rock and dance music, utilising and harnessing the power of the riff in an electronic context. This continues to be forcefully apparent on tracks like "Idiots In Love". [Dec 2025, p.36]

Between the framing piano passages of Pills And People Gone and Distant Symphony, an edge of techno-paranoia permeates the lyrics, especially the title track and the strident False Economy, and there are fierce club beats to match their best, not least on Run Free. [Nov 2025, p.105]

Cut with the wonky, off-kilter darkness of standout tracks such as ‘Polaris’ and siren-like synth whirrs of the title track too, the new record slots neatly into the expansive Dewaele puzzle; a vibrantly textured, shapeshifting, and inquisitively diverse return.

The Dewaeles know full well that the market is the most lying system of all, and that the music Soulwax creates (and we buy, or don’t) is part of that system. They’re selling you what to feel, or at least what to think, while you listen to this enjoyable, very efficient album that never plays the wrong chord or says something stupid, doesn’t need guitars to rock, and delivers its message in concentrated and relentless doses.