Leo Josefsson is a busy boy; as well co-producing the excellent new PRIEST album ‘Altered State Police’, he has also been presenting his podcast ‘Under The Skin’.

But he is now back with Andrew Montgomery in the acclaimed Stockholm-based synth duo UNIFY SEPARATE. ‘The God Particle’ is their stark new album, the follow-up to their sophomore effort ‘Music Since Tomorrow’. While there are fewer guitars this time round, the contents signal a move to a darker and harder approach that bring the pair more firmly into the synthpop orbit. This has been result of extensive live work in Europe but also proximity to The Bear next door and all the tensions that brings with current flashpoints with The Eagle now handled by an Orange Mussolini hell bent on copulation with The Bear.

A record full of the sadness and ecstasy of life, shaped by influences like IAMX, HEALTH, MODERAT, ALPHAVILLE and DEPECHE MODE, ‘The God Particle’ sees the duo try to make sense of their lives, filtering all the joy, grief, fear and love that has come their way in the only way they know how, through music…

With an accelerating sequence, the superb ‘Prelude’ ventures into instrumental hypnotics to set the scene with mighty sweeps and filmic dramatics. But in this increasingly dystopian world where the two biggest nuclear nations are being led by unhinged egomaniacs, UNIFY SEPARATE provide their “sanity clause” in ‘Slow Armageddon’, the duo’s most political and timely song yet which comes swathed in a rhythmically swung anguish like an electro-industrial MUSE.

With tense unsettling offbeats walking in their shoes, ‘Before The Silence Comes’ sees Montgomery and Josefsson enjoyably venturing into classic DEPECHE MODE territory. Remaining in the Mute family, ‘Heart Aches’ is ERASURE ‘A Little Respect’ given a wonderful darker makeover that does make it sound a bit like Brian Eno-produced U2; simultaneously melancholic and uplifting, this is a bittersweet hymn about love, loss and the closing of a chapter that can never be reopened.

With ‘A Million Ways To Die’, things get chillingly sombre but the hooks are not compromised although while death is in the air, it is time to ‘Kill The Machine’ in a spikey uptempo number attacking the looming threat of AI in the manner of THE STOOGES gone electro. With an almighty thump and fusing ‘Music For The Masses’ era DEPECHE MODE, ULTRAVOX and THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, ‘Dark Heaven’ is a call to push personal boundaries and find joy in the senses.

With both personal and macro perspectives, the superb ‘DETOX’ initially enters stuttering techno territory. But as Montgomery’s raw choirboy cry gives a reminder to “Don’t believe everything you think!”, things are turned on their head with an unexpected a switch to straight fours and Josefsson’s own distorted vocal cameo for a classic Scandi middle eight. ‘Fear Is The Hunter’ entices with an array of metallic chatters and builds to an exhilarating anthemic romp with vocals to savour. But with the poignant sound of burning ash as a backdrop, ‘Forever Chemicals’ is a balladic closer that is eerie as hell.

Ok, ‘The God Particle’ is not a cheery record but then it is not a cheery world right now. However, this is the duo’s best and most electronic album yet. It’s time to listen and be part of the fight. As UNFY SEPARATE themselves put it: “It’s Fear of the Hunter, of a Slow Armageddon with A Million Ways to Die unless we Kill the Machine, while also a being a Dark Heaven and a DETOX from a Heart that Aches Before the Silence Comes.”

‘The God Particle’ is available from https://unifyseparate.bandcamp.com/

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Marisol Correa
6th November 2026