Convertible Hearse, the debut full-length by Atlanta’s CDSM (Celebrity Death Slot Machine) is one of those albums that enters your consciousness, slams the doors shut, and drives you through a warped city of neon, noise, and nervous laughter. It’s a dizzying, surreal, and irresistible ride into the post-punk night you surely do not want to miss out. This record is a moving vehicle and it hums, sputters, crashes, and soars. And while the ride is bumpy and strange, it never once loses its pulse. In fact, it’s the danceable, throbbing, unpredictable rhythm of this avant-garde outfit that makes Convertible Hearse one of the most vital and exciting releases in recent memory. CDSM is a sonic collective, a noisy cabal with shared obsessions, post-punk’s sharp edges, disco’s relentless groove, and a theatricality that borders on the absurd. They’ve formed a sound based upon Berlin basements as it does from Atlanta’s humidity-drenched streets. There is sweat, swagger, satire, and madness in their music. Ben Presley, Tyler Jundt, and John Restivo Jr. craft chaotic yet precise energy that immediately wraps around your listening apparatus. They are joined live by a formidable team of synthesists, percussionists, and multi-instrumentalists, adding layers of menace and mischief to an already rich palette. Together, they construct a sound that is rooted in genre but refuses to be bound by it. Yes, there are post-punk, dark disco, gothic croons, snarling saxophones, and walls of analog synths. But what makes Convertible Hearse transcend those labels is their attitude. It’s music that grabs you by the collar, looks you in the eye, and dares you to dance.
And you will dance. Even as the lyrics slide into dark absurdity and the melodies crumble into noise, the beat never lets go. CDSM has mastered the art of groove. Their rhythms are seductive and precise. It’s the sound for the end of the world if the apocalypse had a glitter-covered dancefloor. There is a strange joy pulsing through these tracks, a defiant glee in the face of decay. This joy is infectious. Convertible Hearse makes you want to move. It makes you want to wear leather at noon and sunglasses at midnight. It is both costume and confession. The songs may be strange, but they’re never cold. They’re hot with intention, energy, and something hard to name but impossible to ignore. Presley’s voice guides you through this mad terrain. His delivery is part snarl, part sermon, part sinister cabaret. Every line feels like a cryptic joke whispered through a smoke machine. But there’s something else beneath the surface, a kind of knowing sadness, a recognition that the party may never end, but the lights will eventually flicker out. Every synth squelch, saxophone wail, warped guitar riff feels curated for maximum tension and release. The songs are theatrical but never hollow. There is substance under the spectacle. And that substance is a kind of fearless inventiveness, a commitment to making music that surprises, disrupts, and seduces through strangeness. Convertible Hearse doesn’t waste time. It arrives, fully formed, already moving. Each track feels like a scene in a dream sequence you’re not sure you want to wake from. There is a clear narrative arc, not in lyrics, but in energy. It starts as a tease, builds to a frenzy, and by the end, leaves you thrilled and slightly dazed.
But this is not mindless chaos. There’s discipline here. CDSM is playing with the tropes of post-punk, darkwave, and no wave, but they are also reinventing them. There’s wit in their arrangements and thought in the chaos. The music is absurd, but it’s never stupid. That distinction is crucial. And yet, for all its intensity, Convertible Hearse is also strangely fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, even as it explores serious moods. It invites you into its world with a wink, not a wall. There’s wit in the grotesque and glamour in the grime. It’s an invitation to dance at the end of the world, and maybe laugh while you’re at it. This is not a band content with brooding in the corner. They strut through the room. They stage a freak show. They’re more Bauhaus than Joy Division, more Lydia Lunch than Ian Curtis. There’s theater here. There’s something feral and electric. Atlanta may seem like an unlikely incubator for this kind of sound, but perhaps that’s exactly why it works. CDSM sounds like a band free from scene restrictions. They are untethered from nostalgia. They don’t mimic the past, they mine, distort, and spit it back out with a crooked grin. You can hear hints of The Voidz, Total Control, The KVB, but what CDSM is doing is so fresh, unique, innovative, and exciting. This debut doesn’t feel like a first step. It’s a warped, glitter-drenched, saxophone-snarling vision of what dance music can be when it’s dragged through a haunted house and reborn with eyeliner and blood on its lips.
Convertible Hearse is the soundtrack to a different kind of parade, one that dances through haunted woods, waving black flags and laughing at the void. It is a triumph of tone and execution, a brilliant balancing act between irony and sincerity, chaos and control. It’s music for the nightclub inside your nightmares. And it’s glorious. In a time when so much music feels safe, CDSM dares to be wild. In a time of already proven formulas, they choose fever. In a landscape of mimicry, they offer strange, beautiful, and dynamic sound. They’ve taken a risk and it’s paid off. Convertible Hearse is one of the most exciting debuts of the year, serving as a more than rock-solid proof that art can still shock, seduce, and shake us from our cultural slumber.
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