Soulwax
All Systems Are Lying
Release Date: Oct 17, 2025
Genre(s): Electronic, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Because Music
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Album Review: All Systems Are Lying by Soulwax
Mediocre, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
Belgian brothers David and Stephen Dewaele never hit the heights with Soulwax that they have with other ventures. As remixers they've breathed fresh life into songs by Gorillaz, Marie Davidson, Fontaines D.C. and Tame Impala. As 2manydjs they created one of the best mash-up compilations, As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt.2.
Based on rating 1/10
In this post-truth, post-trust era, the assurance that all systems are lying can feel oddly comforting. Floating on flux rather than guided by facts, we can liberate ourselves from the institutions and verities that are no longer stable or credible. Rely on “my truth” instead and indulge self-gratifying private urges: “I wanna run free / With the music / A beautiful mistake / Try not to lose it / Faster all the time / Smoke and abuse it … / Play the wrong chord / Say something stupid.” Those lines are from the new Soulwax release, All Systems Are Lying.
Opinion: Excellent
The definitive guarantor of quality that is putting the words (Soulwax Remix) after a song (recent beneficiaries include Fontaines D.C. and Wet Leg) glosses over the fact that Ghent-based brothers David and Stephen Dewaele are only now releasing their second album proper as Soulwax in 20 years. In light of their parallel careers as producers, A-list remixers and DJing as 2manydjs, their band has slipped into the background; unfairly so, because All Systems Are Lying - recorded with three drummers and no live guitars - displays plenty of the turbo-charged, New Order-ish electro-pop traits of their best work.
Opinion: Average
Soulwax describes All Systems Are Lying as "a rock album made without guitars," an allegory for a world drowning in algorithm-driven noise and half-truths delivered from grifters pretending to be journalists. But while brothers David and Stephen Dewaele once warped pop detritus into thrilling new forms, All Systems Are Lying--their first studio album in seven years--flattens their once-eccentric mythology into something tidier and more self-conscious, the aural equivalent of TED Talk techno. This pseudo-sociological puffery about our era of media oversaturation is wrapped around slick, technically proficient production.
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