Detroit’s Rogue Satellites drop latest single ‘Ghostless,’ new album out June 3

There’s always been something haunting to the music of the Rogue Satellites. The Detroit-based post-punk, synth-rock duo — comprised of Jaye Allen Thomas and Lisa Poszywak — embrace super evocative aesthetics like minimalist ear worm choruses, careful coatings of reverb and more similar elements.

Their lyrics can drift into fever dream territory or sometimes sound as though they were rendered from the burnt pages of a lost dystopian novel. It’s haunting but beautiful all at once.

Rogue Satellites are Detroit’s answer to Portland’s Chromatics or Danish duo The Raveonettes, but have certainly established their own unique signature flourish to this genre, particularly when it comes to production value and lyrics.

Listen to their new single “Ghostless” below.

Rogue Satellite’s forthcoming album It’s Only A Fire, out June 3, is a mixture of cinematic swells, spooky dark wave-adjacent lullaby ballads, invigorating guitar clangor and danceable beats. Add in some hints of surf-rock and dreamy ambient sways and you get pure poetry through their lyrics, which blend gallows humor with certain satire in the face of this ever-confusing existential crisis that we’re all processing in a post-pandemic world.

It’s Only A Fire is easily Rogue Satellites’ most fully realized album to date as far as synthesizing all the styles and sensibilities described above. Thomas and Poszywak wrote and recorded the album at their home studio, with mixing and engineering assistance from Eric Oppitz at Space Camp Studios in Detroit.

And despite all the haunting descriptors and the fact that the song’s title hints at specters, “Ghostless” is actually quite catchy, uptempo, and in its own way, uplifting. Tapping into the shadowy post-punk beats and airy distortion spans, they sweeten things up with a bopping chorus and an ascending vocal melody that details a life that’s not weighed down by figurative or literal ghosts.

Rogue Satellites will perform at a record release party for ‘It’s Only a Fire’ on Saturday, June 3 at The Lexington Bar in Detroit. The Mythics and The Antibuddies will open the show.