Active for some time under the moniker of VENGEUR and author of the interesting “Par Feu et Par Flammes” (2022), the young Herman Pankow is back on track with a new album, this time under the name of SAINT VENGEUR, as if to underline a process of an evolution that in fact materializes in his most mature work ever.
“Sex and Repression in Higher Society” continues in the wake of its predecessor, but this time the dark mixture of witch house music, darkwave and industrial black metal takes on a new color thanks to the vocals, absent in past productions. On the other hand, part of the charm of SAINT VENGEUR lies in Pankow’s poems, which have always accompanied his music. Heartfelt and poignant, they tell of the restlessness of souls in pain lost in the night illuminated by intermittent neon lights, overwhelmed by intense passions, unspeakable sins, cheap sex, alcohol, abuse, feelings of guilt and loneliness. That of SAINT VENGEUR is an industrialized, dramatic and universal urban landscape, which the Polish artist narrates without censorship, ruthlessly bringing to the surface its most sordid aspects, but also a certain poetics made of fragility and tenderness.
“Sex and Rebellion in Higher Society” is in short the great nocturnal fresco of a wounded and adrift humanity, a twilight of feelings and emotions that flow from its piano notes like blood from a wound.