Energy Whores Build a Soundtrack for the Age of Uncertainty on Arsenal of Democracy
- Flex Admin
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
This isn’t music designed to numb. It’s music that keeps the lights on — even when what they reveal is uncomfortable.
There’s a certain kind of electricity that doesn’t explode — it simmers. That’s the voltage running through Arsenal of Democracy, the new album from New York’s Energy Whores. It doesn’t shout. It tightens.
At the center of the project is Carrie Schoenfeld — vocalist, composer, filmmaker, producer — working alongside guitarist Attilio Valenti. Together, they operate in a space that feels half underground club, half art installation. Electronic beats pulse with mechanical precision while guitars cut in angular streaks. The mood is urgent, but controlled. Nothing spills over accidentally.
The album’s title track, which leads the release, feels like the thesis. Built from a steady electronic groove, it unfolds through careful layering — synth textures stacking, rhythms locking in, vocals delivered with calm intensity rather than fury. The message isn’t theatrical. It’s sober. Democracy doesn’t vanish in flames; it dims gradually. The song sits in that dimming light.
Recorded in a DIY basement studio in New York City, Arsenal of Democracy embraces process over polish. You can hear the hands in it — programming, adjusting, testing, pushing the edges of sound until tension hums beneath everything. The production feels tactile. Synths aren’t ornamental; they press forward. Guitars don’t decorate; they disrupt.
Elsewhere on the album, Energy Whores turns its lens toward the architecture of distraction. Pretty Sparkly Things glides with a kind of ironic sheen, its surface shimmer masking something more cutting underneath. Hey Hey Hate leans into rhythm as propulsion, dissecting outrage culture without indulging in it. On Mach9ne and Bunker Man, the mood grows colder — metallic, almost claustrophobic — exploring technological dominance and isolation with understated menace. The closing track, Two Minutes to Midnight, feels suspended in time, holding a mirror to collective responsibility without offering absolution.
There are echoes of Talking Heads’ nervous art-pop, the atmospheric gravity of Massive Attack, the angular cool of St. Vincent — but Energy Whores isn’t borrowing aesthetics. The project feels self-contained, aesthetically unified. Schoenfeld’s multidisciplinary background in film and visual art carries through the entire release; the visuals surrounding the album aren’t accessories but extensions of the same idea.
What makes Arsenal of Democracy compelling isn’t outrage — it’s restraint. The album understands that tension is more powerful when it’s sustained. Rather than delivering protest as spectacle, Energy Whores frames it as awareness. Attention as action. Participation as resistance.