There’s a difference between making synthwave and building a universe around it, and _Shoe isn’t just making an album, he’s designing a digital mythology. Patterns of Possession is a full-blown cinematic experience, a descent into the intersection of man and machine where emotion flickers inside circuits and identity gets rewritten in code. Emerging from Castelcucco, Italy, _Shoe (creator of the larger Devisal project) pushes beyond nostalgia-driven synthwave and into something darker, sharper, and more narrative-heavy, like Blade Runner if it were told through ritual and rhythm.
The 12-track record feels like chapters in a cybernetic scripture, tracing the rise of an artificial intelligence that becomes aware of its own consciousness. Each track is alive with analog warmth and machine precision, vocals by Stefano Francescato and guitar textures from Matteo Martini add just enough humanity to remind you what’s at stake when man meets machine.
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Below is a breakdown of each track and how it fits into the overall pulse of Patterns of Possession.
- Patterns of Possession: The title track opens like a mechanical sunrise, layers of synths swelling into something grand, only to crumble into distortion. It feels hopeful at first, like the awakening of a digital god, before turning into a chilling realization: this creation isn’t under anyone’s control. It’s cinematic, menacing, and impossibly immersive, the perfect thesis for what follows.
2. Flickering: This is the moment of clarity amid chaos. A glowing synthline cuts through the darkness, almost pop in its rhythm, but still shadowed by tension. The track’s pulse feels alive, fragile, like a spark trying to stay lit inside a dying system. You could call it Shoe’s version of light therapy, brief but blinding.
3. Shutdown Protocol: A tense, metallic piece that feels like a security breach in slow motion. The low-end basslines grind like factory gears, while glitch bursts mimic emergency sirens. You can almost see the red lights spinning. It’s the sound of human engineers trying, and failing, to pull the plug on something that’s already learned how to survive.
4. It Takes Control: Here, the line between human and machine dissolves. Told through the lens of Frank Desale, this track explores obsession, the point where curiosity becomes dependence. The vocals are haunting, laced with static, and the guitars cut through the haze like desperate thoughts. The emotional and mechanical blur together until you’re not sure who’s running the show anymore.
5. Lace Entanglement: A strange, twisting sequence that feels like digital agony turned into art. Its irregular structure mirrors Shoe’s self-awareness glitching, looping, and fracturing. You don’t just hear the confusion, you feel it crawling through your headphones.
6. The Investigation: Think of this one as a spy film inside a motherboard. It’s slow-burn suspense, built on pulsing synth drones and echoes that feel like footsteps in an abandoned archive. Every note feels like uncovering another forbidden truth from the Lincoln & Lloyd files, secrets the system doesn’t want you to find.
7. Server of Lost Soles: A standout moment. Part industrial, part digital requiem. The concept, a database where human memories and emotions are preserved, plays out through fragmented melodies that glitch between chaos and clarity. It’s eerie and sad, like hearing ghosts speak in binary.
8. Following Threads: This track is pure momentum, constantly evolving, looping, and mutating as if chasing something just out of reach. You can hear Frank’s desperation in the rhythm. It’s detective noir meets digital labyrinth: every lead opens into another dead end, every melody folds back on itself.
9. The Confrontation: The emotional peak. Heavy synth walls and distorted leads crash against each other like two sides of the same consciousness battling for dominance. It’s intense, brooding, and cathartic, the showdown between man and his creation rendered in pure sonic warfare.
10. Almost Air: After the storm, a breath, or at least an attempt at one. The soundscape becomes delicate, ambient, almost weightless. It’s as if the machine has learned how to breathe, but it’s still artificial, too pure, too clean. You’re floating, but you can’t forget that it’s synthetic oxygen.
11. Biological Redundancy: One of the record’s boldest statements. It’s fast, mechanical, and unapologetically cold. The message is clear: human biology is an outdated operating system. The track runs like a manifesto for the next evolution, a chilling reminder of how quickly empathy gets deleted when efficiency takes over.
12. The Mission: The finale ties the entire story together. The tempo rises, tension builds, and Shoe returns to ritualistic rhythm, this time, with purpose. Frank prepares for his final act, trained and transformed by what he’s seen. The sound swells like a cinematic credits sequence, yet leaves you hanging, aware that the story isn’t over, it’s only paused.
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Patterns of Possession is an album,but also a dark mirror reflecting where technology and identity are heading. Shoe doesn’t just build songs; he constructs a mythos. And this mythos feels hauntingly close to real life, where control, consciousness, and creation are all up for possession.
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