NOMADS Study the Fear of Darkness on ‘Achluphobia’

With the Doomsday Clock two-and-a-half minutes shy of midnight and fascism's grip tightening by the second, it's easy to feel terrified these days. Some vent their visions of terror through social media, while others take to the streets or the studio to translate those fears into actions. NØMADS, the post-punk duo of bassist Nathan Lithgow and percussionist Garth Macaleavey, fall into the latter category; their upcoming sophomore effort, PHOBIAC, is a 12-track concept album comprising musical interpretations of — you guessed it — various phobias.

NØMADS' follow-up to 2015's debut Free My Animal won't be out until 2018; to compensate for the record's extensive creative gestation, the duo will release its tracks one by one on a monthly basis from now until the album's arrival. We're premiering the first of those songs right here, right now. Today's musical diagnosis is one of "Achluphobia," the clinical fear of darkness; stream it below, and scroll down for the band's statement regarding the new project.

Fear, as an abstract force, has never held a stronger place in our society than it does today. It colors everything we see outside of ourselves. Each song on PHOBIAC examines the fear process through the prism of rare clinical phobias, all approached in the abstract. The buried message within this set of material is a cautionary one: When we succumb to fear, chaos reigns.

Technically speaking, it is generally accepted that phobias arise from a combination of external events and internal predispositions (i.e., heredity or genetics). Many specific phobias can be traced back to a specific triggering event, usually a traumatic experience at an early age.