Chicago darkwave/synthpop duo, clubdrugs, alternately shimmer and brood on their goth dance debut album lovesick.
Release date: March 27, 2026 | Artoffact Records | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp
Winter exits, and longer days are here. The night owl in me is awakening from its slumber. Winter nights are for movies and reading and being cozy, but spring through fall lead to my favorite kind of night, where the being out at night feels more intentional than circumstantial, an important distinction at my age. It also means more touring, and consequentially more goth shows, and goth shows are where I discover rad shit that makes me dance, like clubdrugs. I mean…ah, haha,…the band is called that, and I saw them, sober…well mostly sober, but it was only beer. Anyway, it is great that the name of this band makes it harder for boomers to scare themselves while searching online for what their grandchildren do on Saturdays.
Regardless of my, or anyone else’s intoxication that night, clubdrugs had the place dancing their fishnets off. The Chicago duo of Maria Reichstadt and John Regan manipulated drum machines and synthesizers and guitars while casting catchy vocal hooks with all of the sex, sweat, and black mascara that a Halloween goth night can muster. Following nearly four years of singles and live shows, including opening for IAMX and Public Memory, clubdrugs recorded their debut full-length album lovesick, on Artoffact Records, in their DIY home studio.
Albeit a quick 8 tracks and around 25 minutes, clubdrugs feel poised to make a big splash in the synthpop/darkwave world. These songs sparkle and pulsate, immediately with opener “Bloodfeast” whose chorus feels like a 2000s pop song while the verses contain lyrics like, ‘Don’t know where to go?/go where’s its scandalous,’ beckoning for a vampire blood rave. “Heart 2 Break”, lovesick‘s lead single, leans into goth rock while maintaining their pop-forward sensibilities with driving basslines and a dream-pop chorus. While both of these songs carry snappy, pop vibes, as the album progresses, the shoegaze and atmospheric influences begin to take over. “Pretty (Anna’s Song)” lays on a dense synthpop atmosphere, almost flirting with EBM while tracks like “Overdose” and “Disappear” lean into slower, more ethereal places.
Though Reichstadt carries the bulk of the vocal duties with a voice that whispers, coos, sings, and sneers, clubsdrugs feels their most ambitious with their duets. “Still Down”, a song about hooking up with an ex, gives us two lusty perspectives over neon synth wave with an ear worm chorus. It isn’t the most complex track, but it makes up for it with catchiness. It is also on the more poppy A-side. It is album closer, “Suffer” that feels like it has a house intro before lurching into a gloomy, reverb soaked verse with Regan on lead vocals. When the song takes off in the final third over soaring guitars and Reichstadt joins in the track shoots right into the lead as my favorite track on lovesick. It is less dance-forward, but shines in its execution, calling to mind SPELLLING‘s recent art-rock endeavors on Portrait Of My Heart .
This album shows a lot of promise for the emerging clubdrugs, While they show a lot of diversity in their arrangements, a few more songs would be welcomed on lovesick, not only because the album flies by, but also to give a little more room to play with the sequencing. With a few exceptions, the album seems to introduce their breadth of variety in pairs of songs, almost like movements, but lovesick is so short that these moods feel like they could have more room to breathe, as if the dreamy and bouncy sides of the band are competing for space. When those sides really come together, though, clubdrugs exhibit a great vibe, and their willingness to experiment with different moods promises even greater things to come. It makes me hope they roll through town, again, because these songs would be amazing to dance to on a warm summer night.
