This French dance act has spent years and years living up to its name, turning out singles, mixes, and remixes with a lovably brutal aesthetic-- a grim combination of flickering synthesizers, clenched-teeth rave-era energy, and calls back to the epic, addled clanging of old European hardcore. Along with acts like Vitalic, you might even give them some credit for helping usher the electro boom of the early 00s into the new land of grand, buzzy electro-house. And now, after the significant departure of founder Ivan Smagghe, after bulking up to an actual instruments-and-all band, and after finally having gotten around to producing an LP, they offer us...bad metal? Instead of keeping up the clean-lined flicker of their best work, Black Strobe have slathered in rock stuff: bottom-heavy power-chord snarl, lascivious grunting, and levels of dark posturing that rival the most ludicrous depths/heights of the goth era. Lengthy stretches sound like Trent Reznor, Glenn Danzig, and Korn have teamed up to host a Belgian drag competition.