The world is a dark place sometimes, between the ugly realities of the daily headlines and aspects of the fundamental human condition. We need music to match. On their new split twelve inch Black Ribbon and Don’t Try are here with music that meets that need, managing to be simultaneously dark and uplifting.

Black Ribbon and Don’t Try’s new split single, out on Retratando Voces, marks a musical evolution for both bands. The Leeds-based solo artist Black Ribbon’s earlier full-length, “Strobe,” was weird and gothy, with occasional odd bits of noise, but it was fundamentally a catchy synth-pop record. The vocals matched - shades of David Bowie, Tears for Fears, Talking Heads, and Depeche Mode, with recurrent hints of Devo.

“Interception,” Black Ribbon’s side of this split, however, is much more menacing, harkening back to early industrial music, not of the heavy-metal-with-samples-variety but rather of the awkwardly danceable tape loops variety. Pop elements appear but they are regularly interrupted by blurts of noise and skronk, and are overlaid with darker melodies that do not always resolve. The vocals, meanwhile, often break up amid distortion and reverb. It sounds like someone struggling to be heard. The result is just as catchy as any pop record, but more mature and unsettling, with more staying power.

On their earlier releases, Nottingham-based duo Don’t Try played noise rock of the USA Nails and METZ variety, featuring lots of distorted bass and vocals (often shouted, naturally), the guitar playing dissonant chords, with the added feature of a drum machine playing a deliberately inhuman, mechanical pounding that recalled the harshest work of Big Black. Later the band incorporated more synth and a little more pop, including more sung vocals, albeit with an off-kilter delivery like that of Frank Black’s early work with Pixies. Yet they remained fundamentally a noise rock band.

With “Melancholy Chapters,” their side of this split single, Don’t Try move into territory like early Bauhaus and late period Joy Division: the band has slowed down and stretched out. The music remains pensive and tense, but the noise has become an atmosphere, a backdrop against which the music is often darkly pretty. The music and lyrics depict the sadness of living through the melancholy chapters we all have in our lives, and the triumph of coming out the other side.

Both sides of this split single reward multiple listens. These songs will make you want to put on black jeans and a sweater and go drink and smoke in a dimly-lit room, in the best way. Get this fine twelve inch, on beautiful crystal clear vinyl, with art by Hayden Menzies of METZ, and let yourself enjoy the artistic melancholy that deep down you know you deserve.

For fans of Damn Teeth, Author and Punisher, Bauhaus, Joy Division, and the more melodic sides of Big Black and Author And Punisher.

Words by Nate Holdren