Cybergrinders Blind Equation change a key variable on A Funeral in Purgatory

Cybergrind is a difficult genre to define , but Gossip Wolf hears its spirit loud and clear in Blind Equation , a heavy-electronics project founded by Chicagoan James McHenry. Blind Equation’s second album, 2023’s Death Awaits , arguably set the template for this small but mighty underground scene: brittle chiptune synths race through complex, inventive arrangements, battered by tornadic drumming and scoured by screamo caterwauling. When McHenry started writing the next Blind Equation album, though, Death Awaits haunted him—it had worked so well that he had to tear himself free of its aesthetic gravity. He looked for a way to make a radical change.

“A lot of songs were scrapped, just because I felt like I needed to do something new for the sake of my own creativity,” McHenry says.