There is something gloriously unfashionable about Riot Son. While much of alternative music continues to retreat into increasingly polished bedrooms and carefully curated intimacy, the Boone, North Carolina artist appears to be heading in precisely the opposite direction. “PULSE” is enormous by design, a dark, cinematic blast of alternative rock that seems determined to make subtlety feel like an unnecessary limitation.

At its centre is a vocal performance steeped in nocturnal rock ’n’ roll swagger. There is a hint of Elvis in Riot Son’s delivery, but it quickly becomes something stranger and more volatile. The production, constructed in London by Philip Spalding under his Flip X moniker, gives the track a sense of movement that refuses to settle. A new-wave bridge cuts through the gloom with a distinctly Devo-like precision before the entire thing collapses into a huge, operatic eruption of guitars, drama and noise.

That international architecture is central to “PULSE.” Spalding brings a production lineage connected to Martin Rushent, whose studio work helped shape pivotal records from Joy Division, Buzzcocks, The Stranglers, The Human League and Generation X. The track was then given its final analogue mix and master in Quebec by VE Beats. It is a suitably transatlantic construction for an artist whose ambitions appear considerably larger than his immediate surroundings.

Those surroundings matter. Riot Son’s idea of “Appalachian Gloom” is not simply an aesthetic moodboard, but an attempt to turn isolation, pressure and the darker realities of the high country into an artistic mythology. “PULSE” feels like the moment that mythology gets amplified into something cinematic. The ghosts of gothic punk, glam theatrics and oversized ’90s alternative rock all hover around the edges, but Riot Son is less interested in nostalgia than in using those influences to construct his own larger-than-life figure.

“PULSE” arrives with the self-belief of an artist already imagining the stage beyond the bedroom. A debut EP follows on August 12, with Northeast dates and a planned London appearance further extending the project’s transatlantic reach. If alternative rock has spent the last decade learning how to whisper, Riot Son seems intent on remembering what happens when somebody finally turns everything back up.

PR: Danielle Holian, Decent Music PR