One of my favorite acts right now, the glamgoth duo Dead Lights, released a new song today called “I Am Electric” that is accompanied by a must-see video.
“I Am Electric” is an energetic banger with muscular rhythm from musicians Richard van Kruysdjik and Saul Pettett. Saul delivers fiery vocals in a sort-of spoken word cadence that’s full of fierce attitude.
The video for “I Am Electric,” shot on a soundstage, captures the band’s explosive live performances. The duo look fantastic, armed in black makeup and sparkly masks, but the real stars here are the two robotic arms that whirl about them, bursting with dizzying lights. I’ve been wanting to see them for a while now, and this just amps up my anticipation.
Dead Lights describe “I Am Electric” as an multi-layered industrial pop song:
Electricity flows through all of us, in every human body, allowing us to move, think and feel. It gives us power and life, but as an element, it can also be chaotic, destructive and deadly.
“I Am Electric” describes all this inner energy, the body electric, becoming amplified beyond control. What would it feel like if a person was reduced to this raw element, just mindless energy, bursting out of a human shell and flowing into everything around them? On the one hand to lose all consciousness, but on the other, to join and become one with all other life, rejuvenating and destroying without thought or reason? This process would involve the death of the self, but in return, would grant a kind of life force that’s beyond our comprehension.
“I Am Electric” is the second song from Dead Lights this year. In April, they released another menacing banger called “Receiver” that I included on my countdown of the best tracks on the month.
If you’re new to Dead Lights, the duo formed in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and worked remotely—Saul is from England’s the Isle of Wight, and Richard is from the Netherlands. They produced two well-received EPs, Death Pop and Hex. In the summer of 2021, they released their debut album, the self-titled Dead Lights, which includes the singles “Plastic Girl” and “The Raven.” They quickly followed that with last year’s Doom Doom Trash EP.
