The intersection where industrial rings about and crashes into the shadowed heart of post-punk has never entirely gone out of style — but let’s be honest, it’s grown a bit uninspired. Everyone’s recycling the same haunted looks and hooks, mimicking the icons who once made this grayscale of music feel dangerous, until we’re left with xeroxed shadows — copies of copies of copies, as some would say. But Model/Actriz refuses to let that corner of sound calcify into hamfisted cosplay, prepped and prettied up, only to be forgotten. They’re keeping the menace in vogue — not through bludgeoning force, but with a confident queerification of it all.

Their 2023 debut, Dogsbody, wasn’t memorable simply because it felt like a body grinding itself into oblivion just to be noticed; it lingered because beneath its rough, metallic textures were yearning melodies and a seductive allure that clung desperately to you—sex and longing, heartache, and fetish tossed into a fiery dance floor furnace. Yet, the party hasn’t ended since we last heard from these romping New York fiends; it’s gotten weirder, more honest, and a bit chicer with their latest effort, Pirouette.

Pirouette spins like a battered ballerina beneath the simmer of strobes and fog in some derelict New York club; mascara trails running down toward the shadowy hues of shin bruises, and beauty is always just a step away from collapse. There’s hidden violence beneath Pirouette’s elegance, grace often fading quietly into snarls, then dissolving into sobs. If Dogsbody was a body buckling beneath the weight of consuming desire, Pirouette is the quiet afterward—when that same body meets itself in the mirror, learning to cherish its reflection amidst the wreckage and rapture.

Model/Actriz doesn’t merely evolve on Pirouette; they molt, exchanging Dogsbody’s jagged skin for a silkier, glossier—and ultimately more dangerous—front. Think Britney Spears in a Nine Inch Nails shirt: graceful pop sensibilities sharpened by industrial grit, embodying a fluid tension between glitter and grime. Softness now arrives with greater force, but don’t be fooled—this record still wields a knife. This time, however, the blade is just tucked under a thin layer of pink mesh. This is where queer pop goes when it’s done pretending to play nice. A place where vulnerability doesn’t mean quiet and power isn’t performed through aggression but precision. It’s choreography and chaos at once — the record that holds your face gently, followed by an unapologetic slap.

You feel it first on “Diva,” its rhythmic pulse hypnotic and unnerving, with Cole Haden’s breathy vocals balanced precariously between seduction and threat. “Poppy” feels like a torch song for a haunted ballroom, swelling toward something brighter yet never losing the alluring shadows that entrap Haden’s captivating sway. But it’s “Doves” that fully crystallizes the record’s ethos most distinctly: sensual aggression delivered gently, tenderness folding neatly into cruelty. Elsewhere, Haden navigates the jagged instrumentation of his bandmates daringly, and just when the tension threatens to break, quieter moments like “Acid Rain” offer space to breathe before plunging headfirst into the agitated onslaught of “Departures,” “Audience,” and “Ring Road.” This three-track run unfolds like fever dreams, held together by hair-raising energy and distortion-heavy pulses, all while Haden leads us through reckonings of past regrets. These songs don’t just explore longing—they exorcise it directly on the dancefloor.

And as the dancefloor hums—slick with humidity, spilled drinks, and bodies pressed close in ecstasy or decay—Pirouette refuses to stop spinning: wildly, violently, yet somehow always poised, always hinting at reprieve in the form of a perfect landing. We know the landing will come, but the spinning must be lived in, studied, and cherished. In the fevered spin, something more delicate begins to take shape—an unraveling you can’t escape, only surrender to. These tracks move with the choreography of dancers spinning before mirrors that crack with every chorus and falsetto shriek—each movement vibrating with tension, caught between softness and steel, seduction and surrender. Cole Haden isn’t just fronting this band—he’s leading us down a runway toward our own unraveling. He doesn’t merely perform pain; he parades it, lipstick-smeared and crown slightly crooked, even if only for one magical night.

Within that fragile spectacle, Pirouette encourages us to cling to the ghosts we dance with and the selves we’re still becoming despite all the insecurity and fear. In offering a portrait of the self, these songs are more akin to shoulders to lean on, whips to strike with—catharsis claimed by moving through the tension, daring to shape survival into something beautiful. It’s pop music as therapy, darkwave as drag, and confessions transformed into anthems. Ultimately, Pirouette doesn’t seek approval by how it bares itself; it demands surrender. It dares you to experience desire, disgust, shame, and joy—all twirling together in a dizzying blur of lace and lights.

order Pirouette by Model/Actriz HERE