Retrofate (2025) by Assassun - Music Album Review

It's another year and another full length album from Assassun (the moniker for one of Alexander Donat's many music projects). Titled Retrofate, this album seems to leave behind much of its previous eighties synth sound, taking on a more retro nineties EDM inspired sound mixed alongside its post-punk/industrial beats. Not too much of a surprise is that this is another great album.

Things begin with the sneering and angry sounding 'Poisonalan', its assortment of repetitive beat carrying the track along. 'At the Kiwi Crates' is the weirdly titled and weird on the whole second song. The lyrics sung in a kind of rap beat are very odd, loved it, and I also loved the dirty back beat thudding away throughout.
'1995' is where the retro EDM rave sound begins to appear more frequently. This is the start of a downward descent deeper and deeper into awesome sounding EDM music. 'Past/I N B E T W E E N/Future' has even more of a rave-like feel, the music here is amazing, with what sounded like chiptune style music at times, and entertaining lyrics. Then 'D.E.A.T.H'. goes even further into the EDM wastelands with an evil sound to it, loved the backing beat. 

Following the sarcastic EDM roadtrip 'The Sons of the United Plagues' we get to 'Abysmalism', a track both dramatic and experimental with the lyrics almost becoming spoken word. 'Off the Globe' is the end of the really grimy sounding back beats, another good example of it, those backing beats are so great. Penultimate track 'GATEKEEPER' may just be my favourite on the whole album, I'm not a fan of the genre, but it was still a surprising delight to hear parts where a drum n' bass beat kicks in for some high energy sounding moments that were fun. Finally comes the more slow and introspective finisher 'The Concrete of Time'. A bit surreal, and a very slight opening feel of a The Streets song, this had some good parts scattered throughout its weird journey.

I seem to say this every time, but I once again loved Assassun's latest album; Retrofate, delighted with its abundance of grotty sounding EDM (in the best way). blended with the lovely post-punk industrial sound. There was a good stretch of the album where every song was better than the one that came before. Enjoyed this one more than I had initially expected to.

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