To date, Factory Floor have appeared in a state of constant flux, each successive release resembling a snapshot taken on the eve of a new mutation. Beginning as a claustrophobic post-punk band in 2008, their accelerated evolution has seen the North Londoners graduate through Chris & Cosey-style industrial dance, white-hot analog synth attacks, hi-NRG acid traxx, and New Order-indebted dance pop. The main point of continuity has been a manic energy that lingers somewhere between the ecstatic and the oppressive.
True to form, 25 25, the group’s second long-player for DFA, marks the start of a new phase. Following 2013’s Factory Floor, modular synth player Dominic Butler quit the band—he now records thumping dance as part of the Diagonal-signed Bronze Teeth—leaving just the core duo of Gabriel Gurnsey and Nik Colk Void. This slimmed-down line-up means the Factory Floor of 25 25 feels less like a live rock band than ever before. Their post-punk past has dissolved into extended hardware dance pieces characterized by monomaniacal repetition and stiff, grid-like precision.
Repetition has always been a part of the Factory Floor user’s manual, but here it appears to have become the guiding principle. A single acid gurgle loops throughout the eight-and-a-half minute opener “Meet Me at the End,” and while other sounds enter play—blocks of brittle handclaps, treble-boosted synths, and a ghostly voice commanding the listener to “work… work… work… work”—its abiding feel is one of confinement or suspension, of being trapped in a groove. A similar sense of limbo permeates “Relay” and “Dial Me In,” which rearrange a small palette of synths, hi-hats, and drums interminably.
Such commitment to sparsity is evidently the result of aesthetic decision rather than low horizons. Gurnsey and Void have talked in interviews about paring back their music to bare necessities, and here any dynamic that feels surplus to requirements—which includes verses, choruses, drops, and breakdowns—has been ruthlessly expunged. This forced austerity even extends to Void’s vocals, which appear as fragments, often treated or time-stretched—perhaps a nod to the days when samplers could capture just a couple of seconds of low bit-rate audio.
Even working within these self-imposed strictures, 25 25 is in places very good. “Ya” is the highlight, a fusion of jackin house and ’80s industrial dance that recalls New Order’s “Blue Monday.” It builds around a simple formula, but tosses in all manner of little tricks and flourishes—flurries of clacking woodblock, a sick acid line, a tom-tom roll dispatched with the flick of a wrist. (It definitely helps if you picture the vocal line as a laconic German robot sending up LCD Soundsystem’s “Yeah,” a sly little acknowledgement of the DFA pedigree.) “Slow Listen” filters an admonishing female vocal through groans of hoover bass and piston-pumping snare, while “Wave” is a slow-burner that builds elegant lattices of percussion, even as it bores down hard on one chord.
But ultimately—at least placed next to Factory Floor’s largely excellent earlier records—25 25 feels a little undercooked. It is tirelessly energetic, but often in a brute, functional way. And while it works just great on a treadmill or running machine—I checked—I’m not sure that alone constitutes success on an artistic level. Revisit older Factory Floor tracks like “A Wooden Box” or “(R E A L L O V E)” and there remains something tantalizing there—the way they morph back and forth between live band and broiling techno, a trompe l’oeil for the ear. On 25 25, they’ve shed this dimension, and the results can feel depthless and a little flat. Pare back and pare back and pare back, and eventually you’re left with a blank canvas. Hopefully now, Factory Floor will figure out how to fill it anew.
