Sick Cell

This fast-paced, three-track EP is a nice surprise — the first listen flew by so quickly another was warranted. The chiming, Moby-esque vibe of opener “Entry” is ear-grabbing to say the least, featuring a tentative-yet-insistent guitar riff supplemented by some hollering from the band until the moment the synths come into the mix.

This pattern continues with “Melisa,” with the frantic vocals and energetic backing mixing to make a melange of excitement and angst that is as potent as it is short and sweet. The mood changes slightly for closer “Motionless,” where the pace slows and makes a Cure-like sound that is vaguely sinister, yet offers glimmers of hope in the electronic touches.

This EP is at times apocalyptic in its outlook — “darktronica,” if you will — and there’s nothing wrong with that when material as strong as this flows from the band’s collective minds. Needless to say, when darkness is as good to the ear as this, I want more. - Verbicide Magazine

When Sick Cell took the stage at last month’s Pussy Faggot—Earl Dax’s performance showcase at The Delancey—there was a palpable shift in energy. The Brooklyn-based trio was one of only a few bands on a bill that included drag queens, performance artists, monologists and various other left-of-center acts. It was a generally light-hearted kind of evening, and while Sick Cell’s set wasn’t exactly somber, their music has a sort of darkly mesmerizing quality to it that commanded the rapt attention of the group of rowdy downtown misfits gathered in The Delancey’s basement.

During the band’s abbreviated set, host Jordan Fox leaned over to me and shouted over the music, “They’re really good!” Little Victory guitarist Daniel Erickson echoed the sentiment later, marveling at all the effects pedals the band used.

But the show was running behind, and three songs in, frontman Angelo Tursiapologized for having to cut the band’s set short, wrapping it up with the astounding “Entry.”

“There was such a nice flow that I’d set out!” Tursi said later. These things happen.

Sick Cell was born early last year, when, on a hiatus from his former band, Street Hero, Tursi started writing and recording songs on his own. “I was having a really hard winter, emotionally,” he says, “Loss of a friend—a lover. It just pushed me to write songs about sad, weepy things.” Tursi played every instrument himself, and those surprisingly polished demos are what you hear on the band’s website. When Street Hero eventually called it quits, Tursi asked drummer Eric White and keyboardist Shane LaRue to work with him on his new solo material. “I think Angelo’s recorded versions were a little darker,” says LaRue, “But when we came in it brightened it up a little bit.”
The songs owe a lot to ’80s New Wave and post-punk. You can hear echoes of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus and The Smiths, and Tursi has perfected a sort of broken Robert Smith wail. But he’s quick to point out the influence of newer music as well. Brooklyn bands like Light Asylum and White Ring, and the whole Witch House movement—that murky genre of dark, industrial-infused hip-hop—were also inspirations.

But while the songs may be rooted in a dark aesthetic, they don’t necessarily come across that way. As LaRue says, onstage they brighten, rather like the shadows on a moonlit night. “I guess they come across more edgy. Less crying-in-the-corner,” Tursi concedes. “Round & Round” in particular has an almost dance-worthy bouncing beat courtesy of White’s percussion. And “Entry”—Sick Cell’s best song thus far—is a lush track awash in synths and features Tursi’s echoing vocals over thunderous drums. - NEXT Magazine