Chicago’s Chemical Radical, the solo project of Shawn Wilson, throws industrial grit, warped electronics and retro-digital weirdness into the same blender on Light Moves Around You. Released in September 2026, the debut album inhabits a strange space between industrial pop, noisepool, crunchwave and “gross IDM,” with enough synthetic grime to feel like the soundtrack to a forgotten 1990s 3D screensaver having a particularly bad day.
“Smashlight” sets the tone with thick, rumbling beats pounding through the mix with a reverberant weight. A low-end buzz soon crawls underneath, while splashing cymbals and moody electronic textures keep the track in constant motion. The instrumentation feels deliberately abrasive, but there is method behind the noise, with each sharp digital layer adding another piece to the track’s dense mechanical atmosphere.
Later, “Neurosis” takes a more restrained route. A steady, almost calm electronic buzz provides the foundation, while thinner and sharper sounds hover around it. Rumbling rhythms gradually give the track some physical heft, and smacking percussion punctuates the arrangement with a twitchy industrial edge. It is more about creating a peculiar tension that refuses to completely settle.
Across Light Moves Around You, Chemical Radical embraces sounds that feel simultaneously futuristic and wonderfully dated. Fans of Nine Inch Nails, Tobacco, The Knife, Crystal Castles, Broadcast and Aphex Twin will recognize the attraction to distorted textures, electronic experimentation and uneasy grooves, but Wilson pushes those ingredients into his own eccentric territory.
The album feels like stumbling into a corrupted media-player visualization—familiar, colourful, noisy and just slightly unsettling. Light Moves Around You may not play it safe, but that is precisely where its charm lies.
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Review by: Naomi Joan