REVIEW: The Machinery of Anxiety: Ship Her Son’s “Soundtrack to the Daily Agenda”

Ukrainian post-industrial visionary Ship Her Son returns with his second full-length album, Саундтрек до порядку денного (Soundtrack to the Daily Agenda) — a dense, unnerving meditation on the daily grind as a slow-motion collapse. Out digitally on October 10, 2025, the record marks a clear evolution from 2021’s Essen: darker, more tactile, and emotionally bare.

The album’s concept is simple but devastating — the “quiet panic” of an ordinary day. Each track traces a familiar descent: waking in unrest, forcing routine, collapsing under intrusive thoughts, and ending in exhaustion. The narrative’s banality becomes terrifying, evoking that specific kind of dread born not from catastrophe, but from repetition.

Musically, Soundtrack to the Daily Agenda feels alive and volatile. The production grinds together noise-rock aggression, industrial precision, and techno pulse, while ambient passages provide brief — and often deceptive — moments of calm. For the first time, Ship Her Son abandons sampled voices in favor of live Ukrainian vocalists, turning personal anxiety into something collective. Contributions from artists like Anton Slepakov, Eugene Tymchyk, and Divuar add grit and dimension, pulling the record’s internal chaos outward.

The cover — a figure in headphones watching a fire in an empty field — says it all. It’s a surreal reflection of life in a time when reality itself feels blurred.

In a scene crowded with sterile industrial acts, Ship Her Son’s new record stands apart: human, flawed, and uncomfortably honest. Soundtrack to the Daily Agenda isn’t just an album — it’s a mirror for anyone who’s ever stared into the glow of their own exhaustion and found it burning back.

Listen to the album: https://fanlink.tv/dnp030