The first physical release on Accident Prone in nearly five years is this killer split from two new to us cold / synth wave outfits, the first is Vice Device, who hail from Portland, and whose sound is dark and angular, caustic and chaotic, the music equal parts swirling psychedelic synthiness and buzzing clattery post punk, check out "Fractured Desire", which lays down shards of electro buzz, would in tight coils of sinewy bass, pelted by distorted squelches and clouds of FX, driven by a motorik pulsing, relentless rhythm, all beneath some super powerful, dramatic female vox. "Even Blind" adds some droned out moodiness, and introduces some super melodic male vocals, giving the sound an almost Interpol-ish vibe, with a hint of old school LA goth (Abecedarians, Kommunity FK). The rest of the Vice Device side unwinds similarly, tense and taut, distorted and darkly dramatic, hints of Depeche Mode surface on "Symmetry", a woozy brooder, and things get downright balladic on closer "Bound", which sounds like classic Berlin via Soft Moon! Void Vision is a one woman cold/synth/new wave project from Philadelphia, whose sound is much more electro, opening with a beat that's a dead ringer for classic New Order, before in swoop ominous, buzzing, arpeggiated synths, underpinning, swirling sci-fi melodies, and some eighties style percussive flourishes. The female vocals much more girlish, and more down in the mix, the sound darkly distorted, with some buzzing post punk guitar crunch wound into the otherwise woozy, skeletal synthiness. The sound slipping from cold and clinical and robotic, to swirly and psychedelic and seriously tripped out. "Not Much Of Anything" sounds like a more robotic Gary Numan, icy vox over percolating metallic melodies, flurries of electronic drums, and some dizzying atonal music box melodies draped over the chorus. And VV closes with a killer cover of Queen's "Take My Breath Away", here re-envisioned as a brooding, psychedelic synth ballad, FX heavy vocals, witchy and sultry, delivered over plink/plonk music box synth lines, and swirling clouds of dubbed out shimmer! -Aquarius Records