Released via Lovely Records, Priest deal in the sort of filthy electro that would have Dave Gahan rubbing his hands together in glee as tawdry beats rub against creaking latex. Having found a huge fan base with their 2017 debut, Priest’s latest EP sees the band tackle 90s electro with help from Alpha (ex-Ghost), whose production takes the band’s synth soundscapes and filters them through pretty hate machine-era Nine Inch Nails.
With “themes of loss, revitalization and comfort in promiscuity”, Obay starts with the shimmering Obey, the bright synths pinned by a tough-as-nails beat and sent hurtling out onto the dance floor with sampled “woahs” washed in layers of reverb. Think early Depeche Mode (before violator sent them into their own personal heart of darkness) with hints of Sisters of Mercy thrown into the mix and you have a pretty good idea of the sort of seedy nightclub that Priest see themselves as inhabiting. Things get dirtier with the throbbing Neuromancer, which sounds like it was built around a heavily distorted TB-3O3 bassline, the pounding drums similarly drawn out of the classic Roland line, only to be hauled into a seething hell of gothic-industrial bdsm as the track progresses. The EP hits new heights (or perhaps that should be plumbs new depths) with the skittering horror of Ceremony, a scabbed-knee crawl through depraved lust that sees the synths getting ever more unsettling, even as the vocals sooth and caress the listener into a false sense of security.
With the EP hurtling past, Priest offer a come-down of sorts with a somewhat unexpected cover of Radiohead’s Street Spirit. Radically rebuilding the track from the ground up, replacing the haunting guitar refrain with an arpeggiated synth line, this is one of the few covers of a Radiohead track that is easy to imagine meeting with the increasingly esoteric band’s approval, Priest staying faithful to the intent of the original whilst making it very much their own. Similarly, this is one of the rare occasions where an aggressively auto-tuned vocal works in a track’s favour, the vocal slithering over the electronic backdrop with just the right touch of regret and longing to capture the mood of the original and yet re-frame it for the early hours of the morning as the dance floor clears and the smell of stale alcohol is all that’s left of the night just gone. The EP ends with the lengthy instrumental Tria Prima 2, an eerie mood-piece that recalls Wendy Carlos’ future-retro soundscapes for A Clockwork Orange with touches of FSOL and Underworld’s progressive-ambient mixed in. It’s a highlight of the EP and perfectly showcases Priest’s utter mastery of the form.
Working in a similar fashion to Chemical Brothers’ dig your own hole in that the sequence seems to follow a night out, Obay is a fantastic EP that takes the listener on a tour of the seedier spots in town. From the opening, euphoric rush of Obey through the chemically-enhanced neuromancer to the grey-skied collapse of Tria Prima 2, Obay is a mesmerizing head trip and one that looks set to take Priest to even greater heights. 8.5
