Death in Vegas Death Mask
Death in Vegas's Death Mask arrives as a haunted, austere statement on grief and machines - a record critics agree balances bleak conceptual heft with club-ready propulsion. Across four professional reviews the collection earned an 80/100 consensus score, with writers repeatedly pointing to how tracks like “Death Mask”, “Chingola”, “Your Love” and “Hazel” act as focal points where memory, loss and minimalism coalesce into both atmosphere and momentum.
Reviewers consistently praise the album's ambient textures and industrial dub/techno core, noting a persistent tension between desolate meditation and dancefloor austerity. PopMatters highlights “Hazel” as a seven-minute acid-techno cruise missile and names “Your Love” among the record's most immediate moments, while The Quietus and Bearded Gentlemen Music emphasize the slow, churning synthesisers of “Chingola” and the title track's shift from funeral resignation to a near-spiritual uplift. Louder Than War draws attention to darker exorcisms such as “Lovers” and “Robin's Ghosts”, where machine menace meets tenderness.
While critics celebrate the album's immersive mood and the songs that best translate its themes of transcendence, ghosts and personal grief, some note that the record prizes austerity over accessibility - it rewards committed, repeat listening more than casual play. The consensus suggests Death Mask is a significant, somber entry in Death in Vegas' catalogue that will satisfy listeners seeking both bleak techno atmospheres and disciplined, emotionally driven production. Read on for full reviews and track-by-track reactions.
Critics' Top Tracks
The standout songs that made critics take notice
Death Mask
4 mentions
"The closer, "Death Mask", was inspired by the passing of Fearless' father."— PopMatters
Chingola
4 mentions
"The opener "Chingola", recreates Fearless' birth country of Zambia in five minutes of gossamer ambient bliss."— PopMatters
Hazel
4 mentions
""Hazel" is a seven-minute cruise missile of acid-fried Techno hypnosis."— PopMatters
The closer, "Death Mask", was inspired by the passing of Fearless' father.
Track Ratings
How critics rated each track, relative to this album (0-100). Only tracks that made critics feel something are rated.
Chingola
Lovers
While My Machines Gently Weep
Hazel
Roseville
Róisín Dub(h)
Robin's Ghosts
Your Love
Death Mask
What Critics Are Saying
Deep insights from 6 critics who reviewed this album
Critic's Take
On Death in Vegas's Death Mask, the best songs are the ones that marry bleak concept with undeniable dancefloor power - “Hazel”, “Your Love”, and the title track “Death Mask” stand out. J. Simpson writes in a measured, descriptive tone that leans poetic and a little dour, noting how “Hazel” becomes a "seven-minute cruise missile of acid-fried Techno hypnosis" while “Your Love” offers "a light, trance-infused dancefloor romance." The album rewards repeat listens because these tracks blend personal urgency with stark, effective minimalism, making them the best tracks on Death Mask for listeners seeking both atmosphere and bangers.
Key Points
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Hazel is the best song because it couples acid-fried techno intensity with hypnotic, seven-minute momentum.
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The album's strength is its austere minimalism that channels personal grief into disorienting, dancefloor-ready textures.
Themes
Critic's Take
Death in Vegas's Death Mask is a walk-home record, a dense meditation where the best songs - notably “Chingola”, “Lovers” and “Your Love” - act as states of being rather than hits. Aaron Cooper writes in that measured, elegiac voice the band has long earned, presenting “Chingola” as birth and “Lovers” as a heartbeat searching for itself, while “Your Love” offers a fleeting acid-house hallucination before silence returns. The review leans into atmosphere over access, arguing these tracks succeed by insisting on persistence, memory, and sonic solitude rather than easy pleasure. This is not an album to charm; it is an album to inhabit, and the songs named above are where that inhabitation is most vividly felt.
Key Points
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The best song, "Chingola", is the album's emotional birth and most vivid state, anchoring the record's atmosphere.
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The album's core strengths are its sustained atmosphere, thematic focus on death and memory, and daring refusal to prioritize conventional hooks.
Themes
mu
Critic's Take
In a voice soaked in haunted machinery, Death In Vegas makes Death Mask into a ritual of memory where the best songs - “Robin's Ghosts”, “Róisín Dub(h)” and “Lovers” - stand out as the album's fiercest exorcisms. The reviewer lingers on how “Robin's Ghosts” articulates from the ethers and how “Róisín Dub(h)” unleashes a mean rumble of mechanical darkness, arguing these are the best tracks on Death Mask because they most fully realise Fearless' machine-conversations. There is tenderness glimpsed too, and the write-up insists that the balance of warmth and abrasive techno makes these tracks the core highlights of the record.
Key Points
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The best song is "Robin's Ghosts" because it is repeatedly framed as a benchmark and mesmerising focal point of the album.
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The album’s core strengths are its haunted, machine-driven textures and the balance of warmth and abrasive techno that channel grief into ritual.
Themes
Critic's Take
There is an austerity to Death in Vegas's Death Mask that Jeremy Allen relishes: the best songs - notably “Chingola” and the title track “Death Mask” - trade in bleak, dub-tinged techno rather than pop confection. Allen writes with the same measured, slightly sardonic gaze that has followed the band since the 90s, parsing how “Chingola” washes in slow, churning synthesisers and how the title track moves from funeral resignation to a sudden, almost spiritual takeoff. He flags “Lovers” and “While My Machines Gently Weep” as oppressive and determined pieces that reinforce the album's stark emotional register. The result, Allen suggests, is a serious, unflashy record in which Fearless' honesty is the chief reward.
Key Points
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The title track is most affecting because it turns personal grief into a moment of transcendence.
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The album's core strength is its austere, dub-tinged techno textures and Richard Fearless' candid emotional exposure.