Berlin-based duo RADARFIELD are back with “Death & Beauty”, another gorgeously haunting single that encloses existential dread in poetic beauty. Similar to a sonic vanitas painting, the track is as much a composition based in sound as it is in symbolism – the spectral space between the brightest heights of life and the inescapable nature of death.
The guitars rip through synths like a ghost through velvet, scoring the otherwise soft texture with jagged markings. Marcus’s thorough work respects the DNA of the original demo, but sharpens it into perfection. Suspended over everything else is Tom’s ethereal vocal performance – an unfathomable, smoky voice, smeared with poetic melancholy, sails like breath on a winter window pane.
Inspired by the vanitas allegories of 16th century and the macabre paintings of Hans Baldung Grien, “Death & Beauty” is not only an aesthetic drama, but, in a chilling vein, a commentary on today’s fixation with youth and perfection. In a time when lives are shared via curated feed and filtered faces, RADARFIELD whispers a cold truth: Glittering things have to degenerate.
This is about a slow, decadent waltz with oblivion. The duo’s combination of its Darkwave, Synthpop, and New Wave roots provides the track with a cinematic pulse that flashes like candlelight in a crypt. It’s beautiful. It’s morbid. It’s unforgettable.
With “Death & Beauty,” RADARFIELD show not just making music, but creating atmosphere, feeling, and allegory with their words, decorating their sound as a canvas in which death and grandeur meet for one last beautiful dance.
