Molchat Doma - Etazhi [Coke Bottle Clear]

Cold drum machines and synth lines like frost on a tower-block window: Molchat Doma's Etazhi gets a clear vinyl pressing that suits its chilly glow.

The Minsk trio released their second album in 2018, drawing on the Soviet-era post-punk and new wave they grew up hearing, with nods to Kino as well as the gloom of early Depeche Mode and Joy Division. Sung entirely in Russian, it found a surprisingly huge global audience a couple of years later, when listeners far beyond Belarus discovered its bleak, danceable charm online.

That breakout centred on "Sudno (Boris Ryzhy)", which sets lines by the late poet Boris Ryzhy to a wiry bassline and a vocal that sounds stoic and heartbroken at once. "Toska" broods on longing over a pulsing beat, while "Na Dne" opens the record in murky, cavernous style and "Kletka" closes it on a nervy, restless note.

Egor Shkutko's deep, deadpan delivery anchors everything, and Roman Komogortsev and Pavel Kozlov wrap him in sharp, minimal arrangements that never waste a note.

This is music for night buses and empty dancefloors, melancholy you can move to. On see-through vinyl, Etazhi looks as icy as it sounds, a striking modern classic of the post-punk revival.