Soulwax ‘All Systems Are Lying’ Review: TED Talk Techno

Soulwax describes All Systems Are Lying as “a rock album made without guitars,” an allegory for a world drowning in algorithm-driven noise and half-truths delivered from grifters pretending to be journalists. But while brothers David and Stephen Dewaele once warped pop detritus into thrilling new forms, All Systems Are Lying—their first studio album in seven years—flattens their once-eccentric mythology into something tidier and more self-conscious, the aural equivalent of TED Talk techno.

This pseudo-sociological puffery about our era of media oversaturation is wrapped around slick, technically proficient production. Every snare lands with surgical precision on “New Earth Time,” every synth practically gleams in high definition on “Run Free,” and the drums are so spotless that they could pass a health inspection on “False Economy.”

Each one of these musical elements dazzles on its own, yet together they dissolve into tasteful stasis. Soulwax still understands propulsion, and they know how to make machines swing, but for an album preoccupied with disorder, nothing ever falters. The chaos remains theoretical.

Vocalist Laima Leyton helps bring shape and contrast to All Systems Are Lying, though the songs themselves grasp for significance without ever finding it. “Gimme a Reason” flirts with existential dread, while “Polaris” toys with dystopian imagery, but both end up feeling like vague mood pieces. The album’s nadir in this regard comes when Soulwax attempts to take a swipe at groupthink on “False Economy” with a line that lands closer to influencer envy than social critique: “Your curated playlist/I always hated what you liked.”

The irony is that the blueprint for this type of modular rock was already established two decades ago on Vitalic’s OK Cowboy, which explored the same guitarless, rock-adjacent tension with more danger and less dissertation. That album’s absolutely titanic “La Rock 01” was even sampled on the Dewaele brothers’ side project As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2.

The other sonic influences on All Systems Are Lying—LCD Soundsystem, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk—feel like mere citations rather than thoughtfully integrated references points. Soulwax ultimately reassembles all of its references into something confident but totally safe. It’s a pristine object about distortion, a mirror so polished that it barely reveals anything at all.