Modiste – Nothing More Than A Machine

Analogue dreams and toxic realities

Album facts

Release Date: August 7th, 2026
Label: Self-release
Tags: Electro Pop, Modiste, Synthwave
Discogs: Not avail­able yet
Partially sounds like: The Cardigans, Garbage, Soft Cell, Nina, Pet Shop Boys, OMD
Final score: 3.63 stars

When I read that the US trio Modiste had recor­ded their debut album, *Nothing More Than a Machine*, entirely on ana­logue gear from the 80s and 90s, one thought imme­di­ately sprang to mind: just how syn­thet­ic­ally bril­liant could that pos­sibly sound? And indeed: what this band from Louisville deliv­ers here goes far bey­ond mere nostalgia.

The band, fron­ted by Sydney Sleadd, weaves an aston­ish­ingly dark, unfold­ing nar­rat­ive here. It’s about emo­tion­al cold­ness, tox­ic on-off rela­tion­ships and even our mod­ern obses­sion with AI algorithms. Musically, the album is a wild mix of sur­prises: from dreamy elec­tro pop to unex­pec­ted coun­try vibes and power­ful indus­tri­al moments that imme­di­ately reminded me of Depeche Mode, it’s got almost everything.

Nevertheless, the album left me with a few real puzzles. Why did the instru­ment­als feel a bit of a let-down? Why do the drums remind me of an old issue with Empathy Test? And why does the band some­times seem as though they’re torn between two com­pletely dif­fer­ent music­al identities?

Read the full review to find out just how much poten­tial this album really has and wheth­er it ulti­mately clicks!

From horror classics to the bitter cold

Nightmare

The open­er, titled "Nightmare", deliv­ers exactly what the name prom­ises, as the melody strongly reminds me of that 80s clas­sic hor­ror flick with Freddy Krueger. The drums are prop­erly crisp, giv­ing the whole sound plenty of punch and a char­ac­ter all of its own.

It's a crack­ing intro track that sets up the album "Nothing More Than A Machine" nicely. Honestly, my only real gripe is that it's an instru­ment­al. Sure, there are a few heav­ily dis­tor­ted vocal samples scattered here and there, but they don't really do enough for me. That said, even without prop­er vocals, I still reck­on "Nightmare" is a bril­liant piece of work overall.

Breaking My Own Heart

A touch dreamy, a bit mel­an­chol­ic, and pack­ing a light nod to 90s Garbage vocals, 'Breaking My Own Heart' cap­tures this mood right out of the gate. What hit me straight away was the singing. It’s immensely present, deliv­er­ing the lyr­ics with incred­ible pas­sion. Musically, we’re look­ing at a rich, pol­ished sound firmly rooted in mod­ern elec­tro-pop. I really love the repet­it­ive outro, to be fair, which brings in a subtle 70s space-age vibe. Intentional or not, it works brilliantly.

Lyrically, the track cap­tures the pain­ful yet neces­sary sur­render of unre­quited love with strik­ing meta­phor­ic­al cold­ness. Using clev­er imagery of marble, ice, and unscal­able walls, the text paints a vivid pic­ture of an emo­tion­ally dis­tant part­ner and the ulti­mate escape from them. Honestly, I reck­on it’s a mel­an­chol­ic yet deeply power­ful story about walk­ing away to pro­tect yourself.

Blur

At the start, ‘Blur’ takes us by the hand and leads us through ter­rain that will feel all too famil­i­ar to any genre fan. It kicks off like one of those typ­ic­al syn­thwave tracks that, unfor­tu­nately, often sound a bit gen­er­ic these days. After about 15 seconds, you can prac­tic­ally pic­ture the clas­sic setup: a purple and pink hori­zon crossed with faint CRT lines, a low sun, and the shad­owy sil­hou­ettes of palm trees.

However, the sound breaks out of this rigid tem­plate and pushes the vocals into a fas­cin­at­ing new light. The tone of the voice imme­di­ately reminded me of the syn­thwave artist Nina, a com­par­is­on that suits the track brilliantly.

Lyrically, the song picks up right where its pre­de­cessor ‘Break My Own Heart’ left off, cap­tur­ing the exhaust­ing dynam­ic of a tox­ic, on-off rela­tion­ship. Using dir­ect, pain­fully hon­est lan­guage, it traces this end­less cycle of break­ing up, fall­ing back togeth­er, and emo­tion­al numbness.

I meant it when I said we were through
But my heart isn’t so sure
Gave you all that I had
Got indif­fer­ence in return
You won’t change but I keep com­ing back
So I guess I’ll nev­er learn
Lyrics of “Blur” per­formed by “Modiste”

Honestly, a part of the chor­us hits me really hard. It actu­ally hurts on a phys­ic­al level at times. And while the synths swell in the back­ground, I’m just left shak­ing my head in dis­be­lief at how will­ingly people keep put­ting them­selves through this kind of heartbreak.

Contrasts and a retro feel

My Love

By the time the fourth track, 'My Love', kicks in, that famil­i­ar feel­ing hits me. This isn't just a ran­dom col­lec­tion of songs any more. It's the next chapter in a grip­ping, ongo­ing story.

Musically, the track starts off won­der­fully light, dance­able and almost cheer­ful. The strong 80s influ­ence makes you feel good right away, giv­ing the whole thing a bril­liant touch of nos­tal­gia. The synths and rhythm work togeth­er seam­lessly, cre­at­ing an incred­ibly dynam­ic sound, while the trans­itions between the verses and the chor­us are spot on.

Behind that catchy sur­face, though, lies a real abyss. What starts out as a clas­sic, almost poet­ic love song turns out to be some­thing much dark­er on closer inspec­tion: a vow of uncon­di­tion­al, poten­tially self-destruct­ive devo­tion. Honestly, there's a heavy dark­ness to the lyr­ics that gives the driv­ing beat an emo­tion­al weight you can't eas­ily escape. To be fair, it's this mas­ter­class in con­trast that makes 'My Love' a genu­ine standout track on the album.

Nightmare (Part 2)

Sonically, Nightmare (Part 2) has almost noth­ing in com­mon with the open­er. The mood is com­pletely dif­fer­ent: much bright­er, warm­er, and some­how like a sense of relief. Unfortunately, it's anoth­er instru­ment­al track, which isn't really my thing to be fair.

Technically, the pro­duc­tion is spot on. On such a short album, though, it feels a bit like an inter­lude, if I'm being hon­est, rather than actu­al filler. Mind you, some of the synth lines remind me heav­ily of Pet Shop Boys, and the gui­tars sound just like New Order. Because of that, I couldn't bring myself to give it less than 3 stars.

Shadows

The intro to 'Shadows' grabbed me straight away, as there is this won­der­fully famil­i­ar 80s Pet Shop Boys vibe float­ing through the speak­ers. What fol­lows is a prop­er nos­tal­gic trip. The drums kick in and give the track a clas­sic Amiga demo sound, which is anoth­er bril­liant rel­ic of the 80s/90s. From a pro­duc­tion stand­point, it comes across a bit heavy on the bass and slightly dis­tor­ted, but to be fair, that doesn't ruin the charm at all.

What really stands out to me is the mix of styles. The vocals are quite prom­in­ent in the mix and sur­pris­ingly bring a bit of a coun­try feel to it, while the gui­tars add a punchy dark wave edge. Honestly, it's a great, unique blend of genres that just works.

Lyrically, the song per­fectly cap­tures that intern­al struggle of try­ing to res­ist someone charm­ing yet dan­ger­ous, right up until desire wins and you give in to tempta­tion completely.

A scan­dal to be sure
A crux without a cure
Disarmed by your allure
To hell with being pure
Lyrics of “Shadows” per­formed by “Modiste”

AI, analogue aesthetics and the grand finale

Age Of The Andy

Modiste really have a tal­ent for intros with slightly naive, play­ful melod­ies, which is a style I also love on 'Age Of The Andy'. Sound-wise, you can clearly hear a lovely nod to OMD and Soft Cell here. The shift into the vocal sec­tion hap­pens nice and quickly. The vocals sound incred­ibly dis­tinct­ive, and the clev­er ste­reo effects hit the spot. Thanks to these touches, the track stays dynam­ic and var­ied through­out, mak­ing it eas­ily one of the strongest songs on 'Nothing More Than A Machine'.

Content-wise, there's plenty for the listen­er to dig into, too. On the sur­face, it feels like a clas­sic sci-fi story about lov­ing an android. In today's world, though, it turns out to be a sharp par­able about our own AI era. The song spot-on cap­tures that human habit of fall­ing for tailored algorithmic feed­back, even when you know fine well there's no actu­al soul on the oth­er side.

Besotted

Ta ta ta tata, Ta ta ta tata … my heart starts racing right from the very first notes: the strik­ing synth motif at the start is a true rev­el­a­tion for lov­ers of ana­logue sounds. The sound evokes an old-school synth pop aes­thet­ic, which is only truly brought to life by the subtle warmth of a funky Duran Duran-style gui­tar.

The track takes its time build­ing up. It’s only after a good minute that Sydney Sleadd takes the mic and unfolds an impress­ively broad son­ic spec­trum. Her vocals come across as fas­cin­at­ingly serene, bring­ing a won­der­fully cool edge to the mix.

But what grips me most about this track is the sheer intens­ity of the ten­sion it builds up. It’s a real clat­ter in the best pos­sible sense, driv­en by those typ­ic­al, raw indus­tri­al sounds of the 80s. As soon as the song reaches its mid­point, the con­tinu­ously loop­ing intro pat­tern (Ta ta ta tata) really hits home for me and inev­it­ably brings back fant­ast­ic memor­ies of Depeche Mode’s ‘Stripped’. A power­fully com­pel­ling track!

A brilliant debut with a split personality

First off, I have to say: this album is bril­liant, and it caught me com­pletely by sur­prise! This band genu­inely deserves to be heard across the synth pop and elec­tro pop scene.

While listen­ing, I just couldn't shake the feel­ing that the trio is a bit torn between two styles. One side clearly loves clas­sic, deeply mel­an­chol­ic synth pop, while the oth­er leans more towards stand­ard indie or alt pop. That is pre­cisely why my final score turned out the way it did. To be fair, I simply prefer the mel­an­chol­ic synth pop side of things but I hear an awful lot of poten­tial here!

Two hearts and a familiar drum problem

I want to draw a com­par­is­on here as well. Honestly, I had the exact same issue with Empathy Test’s last album, Monsters. Great synths, fant­ast­ic vocals, bril­liant lyr­ics, but the overly organ­ic-sound­ing drums ruined the fun a bit for me in the end.

Anyway, I am really excited to see where the band goes from here, and I genu­inely wish them all the best!

Modiste’s links

Official web­site
Spotify
Instagram
TikTok

Track by track rating for: Modiste – Nothing More Than A Machine