RADAR: Cult With No Name

Moody, sweeping electronic elegance drives the chilly pulse of Cult With No Name, the London duo of Erik Stein and Jon Boux. Coming across as the dour, atmospheric "post-punk balladeer" cousins of the more sprightly dance-pop mavens The Pet Shop Boys, this no-wave Cult worships at the bleak, slow-mo, synth-driven altar like a goth version of The Blue Nile. No one's breaking a sweat here but that icy indifferent style is part of the pair's nonchalant, if occasionally über-arty appeal. Above As Below, their fifth album in five years, offers up sleek art/pop with a plugged-in pulse, as songs like the "Raise A Glass" and "Hope Is Existence" (with a chorus that echoes Tears For Fears' "Mad World") flicker and burn like shadowy images from a half-wakened dreamscape.

Cult With No Name - "Raise A Glass" (from Above As Below)

Cult With No Name - "Hope Is Existence" (from Above As Below)