Atom Lux – Voidgaze Dopamine Salad (Album Review)

Atom Lux has a new crunch-filled 10-track progressive rock album, Voidgaze Dopamine Salad. The album was released in October 2025 under the label, Sorry Mom, and has energetic instrumentation and strange lyrics that will make the listener’s head spin, and perhaps doubt reality.  

The album starts with ‘Pointless Madness’ – a song that starts with buzzing strings. A brief pause, and vocals kick in. ‘Take it to the limit, find a way to dig it’, a male voice sings freely in a high-pitched register before being joined by deep male vocals. Crunchy, melodic guitars and energetic drumming soon dominate the soundscape, eventually transitioning into a segment featuring bouncy and plunky strings. While the instrumentation is powerful enough to overwhelm the lyrics, the lyrical persona mentions being insane. The song concludes with a comical ending where a singer shouts, ‘Let’s wrap it up!’. And then there’s laughter.

Lyrically, this song is a journey into madness and the world of absurdism. You never know whether the lyrical persona wants their addressee to go easy on the madness or actually dial it up: at one point, the addressee is told to ‘take it to the limit’, as I’ve previously noted, and then the next they’re told to quit the drama, ‘and see the Dalai Lama’. It’s gotta be a ‘crazy’ song where the addressee is told to have some funny juice, and also ‘see the Dalai Lama’.

‘Bad Snake Good Snake’ follows, opening with a lower energy defined by crunchy, distorted textures and drumming that produces a distinct wooden sound. A melodic, deepish voice delivers the line, ‘I got bitten by a revolutionary snake’, later on followed by the rhythmic repetition of ‘Bad Snake, good Snake’ in between the lyrics.

One has to remark about the absurdity of ‘revolutionary snake’ – whenever was a snake revolutionary? And, what kind of snake is revolutionary?

Lyrically, Atom Lux’s lyrical persona is unsure whether they should trust him or not. They go on to say that the snake is a ‘kind of beast who doesn’t care about anything but his own thoughts’. So, here we learn three things about the ‘revolutionary snake’: it’s a ‘he’; you’re never sure whether he’s trustworthy, and he’s selfish, only caring about his own thoughts.

As I listen to the song loudly on my speaker, peeking now and then into the written lyrics, I’m left thinking: this is the kind of music you would want to listen to live at a concert. Atom Lux is an interesting lyricist. There are a couple of instances where I noticed some unexpected lyrical content.

‘Death by Small Talk’ follows, featuring clean lead guitar, a steady kick, and metallic percussion. This eventually gives way to a section of crunchy guitar. Lyrically, the song utilizes rhyming with the line ‘Hey you! Tell me something new!’ delivered through lethargic, drawn-out vocalizations that contrast with the instrumentation’s quick pace.

Absurdism also follows us in this song. The lyrical persona wants to hear something new from their addressee, but at the same time, they impose conditions; they dictate what they should say. They threaten to walk away if the conversation is not big.

‘Black Mirror’ comes next, starting with a buildup lasting over a minute initiated by clean lead guitar and backed by bass and light metallic percussion. High-pitched vocals eventually kick in, though the instrumentation overpowers them as crunchy guitar enters the mix. The vocal delivery shifts from single-word chants into a more complex style as the track progresses, allowing the instrumentation to morph and warp while Atom Lux raises his voice throughout this lengthy song.

Lyrically, we meet a lyrical persona who motivates a disinterested addressee to ‘look around’ as the world they once knew ‘has burned to the ground’. It’s more of a ‘get your ass up, lazy bum’ kind of song!

‘J.I.B.B.E.R.I.S.H.’ comes up next, opening with a rapid but brief drum progression that quickly gives way to the vocals. The singer delivers lines regarding opinions on the dark, maintaining an energy level that matches the dominant instrumentation of drumming and crunchy guitar. Notably, the arrangement avoids a static style, frequently shifting and evolving throughout the track.

Lyrically, a lot is going on in the song, and we meet a couple of characters. Onions glow in the dark, penguins launch into space, and the lyrical person wants to hit them in the face. As for characters, we have John, who speaks backwards, although the lyrical persona can understand them.

The lyrical persona then introduces – who to, we really don’t know – their dearest friend, Molly, a singer in a band. While John is said to speak backwards, the lyrical persona themselves are strange: for instance, everything they see ‘is upside down’.

The singing and instrumentation, consisting mostly of acoustic guitar, are more subdued in ‘Dance Plague Delirium’. Thick drumming soon gives the song a weighty feel, with the vocalisation also gaining energy as the track progresses.

Lyrically, we have another strange song, again with a number of Luxian characters: we see a ‘she’ who goes outside and starts spinning around, ‘Dancing and writhing to the absence oof sound’. There are people ‘running out of their mind’. And we also get a musician about to die, then a loony priest. The musician plays their last song, but they don’t know the fact; and the priest throws ‘holy salt at the moon’, the moon laughing him ‘for being a loon’. Then Atom Lux delivers a line with some devastating rhymes: ‘It was a celebration of devastation’, he sings. But the characters never stop dancing,

‘Stoned Monkey Heritage’ starts with some whistling and some creature speaking in a twisted manner before a clean lead guitar pattern and throbbing drumming stabs enter. The vocalisation is rather deep and mean, matching the intensity of the instrumentation. Later on, Atom Lux tampers with both the instrumentation and vocalisation, decreasing the heat and tempo to shift the song’s energy.

The lyrics here are cryptic. But if there’s one thing, there’s the lyrical persona telling their addressee to ‘look around and see the universe unfold like a cosmic flower’. They go on: ‘Sure, it’s gonna freak you out at first, but you will be just fine’.

‘Spaghettification Apocalypse’ follows, initially featuring very subdued lead guitar and vocalisation where Atom Lux adopts a ballad feel. However, the song effectively starts again as crunchy guitar and energetic drumming are introduced, shifting the vocals into a high-pitched and fast-paced style. This transition leads into another remarkable, though unsurprising, shift in musical style that alters the track’s direction.

Again, it’s an absurd song lyrically. You have the lyrical persona saying that the sun’s not yellow, but chicken! Again, it’s a song where the lyrical persona confronts their addressee’s lethargy, nudging them towards some action or curiosity at the world.

‘Mandelbrot! Mandelbrot!’ follows, featuring twisted, menacing vocalisation asking, ‘How did I end up in this sick please?’ The track is driven by low-sounding, crunchy guitar and thick drumming that fills the ears, maintaining an intense and heavy atmosphere throughout.

We meet our lyrical persona in a vast maze, and they feel that they are about to lose their pace. ‘How did I end up in this sick place’ they ask.

We then hear about the ‘Mandelbrot’ guy who tells them that they’ve ‘got it all planned out for a sensational land of repetition and recursion’. You have to wonder: what kind of world is this, repetitive and recursive?

The lyrical persona is apprehensive, asking themselves what the too good to be true news they’re hearing from Mandelbrot is a scam, but as we know from Atom Lux’s foolhardy lyrical personas, this one decides that they don’t care. They’re going whether it’s a scam or not. 

While it’s perhaps commendable that Atom Lux’s lyrical persona tends to encourage other personas to be active, this lyrical persona worries me as they want their addressee to join in on the fun that’s making him crazy.

‘Toxic Easter Bunny’ closes off the album, featuring crunchy guitar and drumming that merge here as if they were a single instrument.

Lyrically, the menacing, toxic bunny is coming to town. His name is Marlon, and the addressee is told to ‘better watch out and hide your children away! He’s gonna break into your house in the night. You won’t notice when he’s gonna hit’. Like the snake earlier on, ‘Marlon doesn’t care’ and has got nothing to lose.

We hear more about his characteristics: he’s ruthless, and is ‘a fuckin psycho’! The lyrical persona goes on: ‘It’s like a psychedelic circus. Just sit back and enjoy the show’ – the show director being Marlon, the so-called toxic easter bunny!

SCORE/Outstanding: This is an outstanding album that leans heavily into crunchy guitars and wonderfully absurd lyrics. When it comes to the writing, Atom Lux remains a dependable user of rhyme, though you should listen at your own peril – it is a whirlwind experience that will leave your head spinning.

The lyrics are so eccentric that they’ll have you laughing out loud. The creativity here is completely uninhibited, allowing the imagination to run wild with vivid imagery of revolutionary snakes and toxic bunnies.

[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]

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