Last week, Ultra Sunn released The Beast in You. While the Belgian duo’s sophomore album isn’t quite a departure from previous club hits like “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” and “Broken Monsters,” or last year’s debut full-length, US, it shows some welcome growth from the EBM outfit.
Heavily influenced by European dance music of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ultra Sunn excels at songs that bridge the old and the new. It’s no wonder that they’ve been one of the most requested artists I’ve seen while DJing. Most of their songs are around 124 or 125 BPM, which is solidly mid-tempo when you’re DJing a darkwave night, and they fit perfectly in between Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb classics and more recent bangers from Boy Harsher and Sextile. This kind of consistency makes Ultra Sunn songs ideal for club play, but it’s also what makes them less interesting for at home listening. That’s very common amongst artists who work in hyper-specific niches of dance music, but, nonetheless, I can’t help wondering what it would sound like if Ultra Sunn stepped outside of the comfort zone.
Fortunately, they’re beginning to do just that on The Beast in You. Nearly all of the songs on the ten-track album fall into the mid-tempo dance category, but they’re also filled with a wider rhythmic variety and small details that might be foreshadowing new directions for Sam Huge and Gaelle Souflet. Take the title cut, which was released as a single earlier this year. Here, synth strings soar in the song’s final minute, giving it an Italo disco or French new wave flair. “Wrong Floor,” which has been doing quite well in my DJ sets ever since someone requested it a few months back, has a strong pop song sensibility. It’s very much a club song, but one that is compelling off the dance floor too. “Hard Feeling” has the kind of sinewy groove you might expect from Depeche Mode.
Meanwhile, “L.A. Drags” is unusually ominous amongst Ultra Sunn songs with its crash of a snare and a breakdown conveys a sense of urgency, as if the kids on the midnight bus in the song’s first verse are now being chased through Hollywood alleys. TBH, this is the one song I really want to ask Huge and Souflet about because it’s giving me simultaneous film flashbacks to Angel and Go!
One of my favorites on the album, though, is the album’s closer. Ultra Sunn drops the tempo for “Golden Vein” to a slow, steady Belgian new beat pulse as the synths swell for a dramatic effect in what’s about as close as the duo gets to a ballad on the album. It’s a lovely change of pace that brings the duo’s excellent second album to a worthy finale.
Ultra Sunn is touring Europe into early next year, but they’re expected to be back in the U.S. next spring for a jaunt that concludes May 23, 2026 at the Belasco in Los Angeles and also includes dates in Riverside and Santa Ana. Full tour schedule is available on Ultra Sunn’s website.
Get The Beast in You by Ultra Sunn.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs or listen to the latest Beatique Mix. Follow on Instagram or Bluesky for more updates.
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