From the release of their 2011 EP through to 2022’s ‘Voodoo’, Kill Your Boyfriend have steadily crafted an impressive mix of post punk and heavy electronica sounds. Over the course of more than a decade, they’ve remained true to themselves, never really sought commercial acceptance, or softened their sound. On 2025’s ‘Disco Kills’, there are a couple of interesting musical deviations, but the bulk of their material remains incredibly harsh.

This is most obviously the case with their choice of opener, ‘Ego’ – a ninety four second blast of hard edged noise designed to jolt the audience, and then pummel them into submission. Immediately attacking with a cold front, an abrasive wall of distortion takes the sharp edges of an industrial sound and amps it through the noise rock experimentation of Throbbing Gristle. Working that to create a pulsing groove, over which a heavily distorted voice barks the chosen lyric with an almost militaristic precision, it results in something that sounds like an overspill from KPT’s equally ugly ‘Claw’ EP meeting an old Laiback tune. Nearing the other end of the EP, the speed driven ‘Discretion’ takes an incessant rhythm that echoes a KMFDM remix and sets up a very danceable sound, but once that finds its feet, KYB switch gears and attack with an incredibly shrill guitar-oriented blast of noise against a shouting voice, offsetting any momentum that may have been built up. Then, changing back to the original riff with the pulsing keys, the track plays like a superb industrial remix, complete with a relentless echo used to create a vocal hook. It’s busy to the point of almost being tiring, but at the same time, the seething anger in the performance creates something really impressive.

‘Apathy’ catches the ear in the most unexpected way by sharing a synth loop that sounds like an energised version of something lifted from a Tangerine Dream soundtrack, before sliding into more of a comfort zone with the help of hard beats and another heavily distorted voice. The vocal is so buried that it’s impossible to pick out any lyrics, and eventually it seems to take on the form of extra instrumentation. Since this number doesn’t even clock up two an a half minutes, those musical aspects would be enough alone to sustain listener interest, but the late arrival of a very 80s synth – all bleeping tones and new wave intents, like Landscape in size twelve boots – gives this number a welcome twist and creates an EP highlight.

‘Illusion’, meanwhile, takes a darker form, sharing distorted bass notes, deep echoing vocals and far more of a traditional post punk/goth stance. Traditional, yes, but never lazy: between its rigid rhythms and slow drones, interspersed with abrasive, choppy guitar lines, it creates one of KYB’s most accessible arrangements, and whether approached as an alternative soundtrack to the slowly imploding world at the time of release, or a throwback to the underground sounds of 1982, it really works. Offering something a little more buoyant, ‘Obsession’ stokes up the synth sounds, and by working a repetitive loop against a mid tempo rhythm, creates the perfect blend of darkwave and light industrial without losing KYB’s core post-punk sound. A distorted, spoken vocal gives the track the air of something from a sci-fi dystopia, whilst distorted sound arcs weave between a cold, but pleasingly melodic riff. Melodic, in this case, is purely relative, since KYB continue to plough their strange and confrontational furrow, even with a bigger concession to a tune acting as a driving force. If you’ve not heard this band before, then dropping in and listening to this track before tackling the whole of this EP is certainly advised.

If you’re able to break through Kill Your Boyfriend’s colder aspects, then ‘Youth’, placed very strategically at the end of a challenging fifteen minute listen, supplies something that could broadly be called a “melodic reward”. The programmed rhythms are no less forceful, but the use of an indie pop-ish melody beneath the surface and a busy goth-tinged voice all come together to supply a tune that sounds a little more retro. The angular elements and busy vocal, oddly, sound like an aggressive take on the more new wave based experiments from Franz Ferdinand’s surprisingly varied ‘Human Fear’ album (one of the highlights from the first half of 2025), whilst retaining this Italian duo’s usual angry edge, set against more of an 80s tinged post-punk sound. In some ways, this is another of this EP’s stand out tracks, despite being a little different from the KYB “norm”.

This EP sometimes conveys a sense of a band trying something different, adding to their core of noise with a few danceable rhythms and a world of pulsating synths, but the results are often no less confronting. It results in a short and very sharp listen that’s very much reliant on the listener approaching the material in the right frame of mind. ‘Disco Kills’ is interesting, sharp, and occasionally strangely alluring, but it is very obviously for fans only. That was pretty much always going to be the case, however, but for those who’ve journeyed with Kill Your Boyfriend thus far, this will serve up a couple of massive sounding treats, as uncommercial as most of this release may seem.

May 2025