Dan Terminus – ‘NOIR’ Review

What does Dan Terminus sound like?

Dark, aggressive synthwave music, often from the coldest corners of space.

The review of ‘NOIR’ by Dan Terminus

With a decade of maximalist synthwave and darkwave music behind him, Dan Terminus turns his attentions to atmospheric electronic ambience with his latest album ‘NOIR’. As Dan himself says, NOIR is a dragging descent into cold, peaceful, indifferent and harsh darkness. Both cinematic and brutalistic, it’s the kind of music to listen to in pitch black or surrounded by moody architecture.

Whilst electronic ambience can often be code for endless, structureless, and melody-free compositions, that isn’t the case here. Dan Terminus keeps melody and rhythm front and centre, and the coldwave sound palette helps each melody cut through the dense bass. Sonically, I’m reminded of PS1-era synths that have received a remaster glow-up. Some synths could be modern-day dance floor hits, some evoke 80s nostalgia, and some are purposely synthetic and eerie. That allows tracks like ‘NOIR_II’ to crank up cinematic tension with its throbbing bass and retro “aah” voice samples, and straddle cinema and game music. Elsewhere, ‘NOIR_III’ embraces pitch and filter shifts to create a warped sense of gravity and time with tinny sinewaves and ethereal choir samples.

Not all tracks are densely ethereal. Dan Terminus brings in tom-happy drum machines for ‘NOIR_IV’ and ‘NOIR_V’ for an epic space odyssey. Both tracks have that feeling of approaching the final boss at the end of a dark, damp, murky corridor. Synths spark in neon glow, whilst angular chord stabs strike a primal angst into both tracks. The album bookends itself with two rhythmic darksynth pieces. They are both incredibly dense and claustrophobic and evoke a damp, miserable Monday morning. Whilst atmospheric reverb is used across the album, the longer-tailed synths used to open and close the album sell the dystopian city feel perfectly.

Quieter but no less compelling, ‘NOIR’ is a great sidestep into more atmospheric synth work for Dan Terminus. I like how this album can fit into the rest of Dan’s back catalogue. So much of his work is high-energy, gritty, bone-pulverising cyberpunk boss anthems in waiting, that I feel ‘NOIR’ works as a selection of prelude tracks before the boss anthems on other albums. I strongly recommend inserting ‘NOIR’ into other albums like ‘The Wrath of Code’ to make both sides of Dan Terminus sing loudest. Great fun.

Recommended track: NOIR_II

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