For fans of: She Past Away, Lina Aspera, Bauhaus
Lebanon Hanover has long commanded the cold‑wave terrain. The Swiss-British duo, famed for their 2013 gothic anthem ‘Gallowdance’, have amassed a reverent cult of admirers for their melancholic, minimal music that hearkens to the darkest annals of the 80s with the cold gravity of a 21st-century conscience. With their latest outing Asylum Lullabies, they sink deeper into these dark, wintery realms, crafting a chilling portrait of mental collapse that feels uncomfortably timely.
Stylistically, the album remains rooted in cold wave and post‑punk, yet it shifts further into experimental electronic territory than any of their previous work.
The project’s portal ‘Pagan Ways’ offers primal sounds befitting of its title: driving toms, harsh, industrial drones, and hushed chants and whispers give way to vast passages of unmoored space – a rich instrumental arc that blooms into a wave of sound. ‘Sleep’, the album’s promised lullaby, serves up haunting, disquieting ambience in its instrumental, but Larissa Iceglass’ vocals, though fittingly moody in their delivery, fall short on somewhat underwhelming lyrics.
Lead single ‘Torture Rack’ possesses a hypnotic murkiness more reminiscent of a lullaby than its predecessor. The track channels Cocteau Twins–esque textures into a haunting terrain of a torturous love and dissociation.
‘Frosty Life’ drops the ball a bit – it unfolds with a soft, almost childlike fragility, but feels somewhat hollow. While some listeners may find its lyrical simplicity bordering on naive, the track does redeem itself with a strong and resonant instrumental arrangement.
Things pick up with one of the album’s most rhythmically kinetic tracks, ‘Waiting List’, which pulses with undercurrents of early EBM and minimal wave, cloaked in Lebanon Hanover’s signature detachment. It’s among the more instantly engaging moments on Asylum Lullabies, managing to retain emotional tension while inviting the body to move. A standout for its gothic grandeur, ‘My Love’ is replete with shadowy synth atmospheres that buoy a spectral vocal delivery from William Maybelline. There’s a theatrical flourish mixed with a danceability, courtesy of the timeless drum machines.
The penultimate ‘I’m Doing This for You’ is a nod to the duo’s earlier work, but with added emotional weight. The song navigates a fine line between yearning and restraint, delivering a heavy-lidded intensity that leans deeply into indulgent hopelessness. Maybelline’s disjointed vocals are not easy to listen to, but suffuse the track with a strange, deathly beauty that feels like a sonic distillation of anguished ghosts floating forlornly in a churchyard.
Closing the album on an unsettling note, ‘Parrots’ is a slow descent into dreamlike disorientation. Built on warped percussion and dual vocals that teeter between affection and surrealism, it spins a mantra-like refrain – “People have parrots and I have you” – that loops like a hallucination, bringing the voyage to an uneasy end.
Asylum Lullabies has received mixed reviews from fans and critics alike – this record is certainly not for the faint of heart. Stark, uncompromising, and immersive, it explores the fracture of the mind under modern pressures – mental health struggles, heartbreak, global conflict, and existential dread – leaving listeners marooned in a hazy awakening.
