Redemption the salvation
That’s out of reach
All the lies they will forever preach
The night belongs to vampires, black leather, bad blood, and decisions best made after the sun has gone down. The Lost Boys sank its fangs into theatres on the 31 of July 1987, and Karlsruhe industrial death wave trio Bleak Monday chose the same date 39 years later to unleash Shelter. It feels like an appropriately cursed bit of calendar alignment. The song and its accompanying video share the film’s appetite for danger, nocturnal excess, temptation, and the enduring truth that everyone looks better once respectable society has locked its doors and drawn the curtains. Bleak Monday takes that invitation underground, descending into a dungeon club where the congregation wears black, the entertainment comes with cages, and somebody has clearly misplaced both the fire code and the holy water.
Bleak Monday formed in Karlsruhe in December 2022 with one foot in ’80s wave and the other planted somewhere between metal, industrial rock, and the more bruising end of electronic music. Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, and Ministry provide useful coordinates, though there is also enough dangerous glamour here to imagine the song turning up midway through a particularly depraved Gregg Araki sequence.
Directed by Natascha Gaballo, the video drops Bleak Monday into a dungeon club populated by cages, goth go-go dancers, temptation, domination, and enough black vinyl to make a parish priest reconsider his evening plans. The footage was transferred to VHS and then re-digitized, giving the images the bruised texture of an ’80s B-movie that spent several years behind the counter at a video store before somebody finally asked what was on it. Horror references tied to singer Kim Ryder’s favorite films are tucked into the scenery for anyone inclined to freeze-frame their way through the debauchery. That presentation suits Shelter, a slab of industrial death wave built from Yann Lauer’s guitar, Sebastian “Hubu” Huber’s synths, drums, and bass, and Ryder’s commanding vocal performance.
Ryder sings about religious hypocrisy, concealed abuse, televised violence, and salvation sold by institutions that appear to have misplaced the receipt. The central plea for rescue grows increasingly desperate as the song works through shame, faith, exploitation, and spiritual exhaustion. Any promise of redemption feels compromised by the people making it, leaving the singer caught between belief, disgust, and the desire to disappear from a reality that has become unbearable.
Gaballo makes that unease physical. Ryder performs amid bodies presented as spectacle, pleasure, threat, and distraction, while the club becomes both sanctuary and trap. The cages are hardly subtle, but subtlety would be rather pointless when the song is throwing death, rape, hypocrisy, and redemption into the room. Sometimes a sledgehammer has admirable editorial instincts.
Watch the video for Shelter below:
Shelter also serves as a teaser for Bleak Monday’s forthcoming debut album, Bad Music, a title that practically invites hostile witnesses. Since beginning live shows in early 2023, the trio have shared stages with Das Kinn, Nils Keppel, The Body, and Ministry. Judging from this clip, they have already figured out one valuable lesson: if civilization is collapsing, somebody should at least book the dancers.
Listen to Shelter below and order the single here.
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The post “Burn the Lies” — Karlsruhe Industrial Death Wave Trio Bleak Monday Unleashes Video for Shelter” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
