One of my long time favorite deeply indie bands is The Mechanisms, a British band best known for publishing outlandish concept albums that readapt traditional folk songs into futuristic settings.
One of my favorite of their albums is Ulysses Dies At Dawn a heist/cyberpunk noir story that leans heavily on Greek mythology. The album tells the story of a far future world where death has become impossible (and that’s not a good thing). When anyone dies, their brain is harvested and used for computer processing power in the city’s massive supercomputer called the Acheron. However, a group of criminals hired by a mysterious benefactor has been charged with opening Ulysses’ vault which is said to contain a weapon powerful enough to overthrow the system and bring down the Acheron.
Ulysses Dies At Dawn is a scifi heist retelling/readaptation of Greek mythology where the Olympians are rich elites who can afford to pay for medical treatments to keep them alive so they never have to have their brains harvested for the Acheron. The hero of the album is the jaded and traumatized Ulysses who vowed revenge on the Olympians after committing atrocities in their name during the equivalent of the Trojan War.
Also featured in the album are: Hades (overseer of the Acheron), Oedipus (a blind cyborg), Orpheus, and Heracles.
Although the recording quality is sometimes less that stellar, the lyrical complexity and the worldbuilding the Mechanisms manage to squeeze in to about an hour of music is absolutely amazing. Every album of theirs I’ve listened to I’ve ended up thinking about long after I finished and I always find something new each time I re-listen.
If a heist/cyberpunk noir retelling of Greek mythology isn’t up your alley, there’s also a Murder on the Orient Express-style mystery featuring the Norse gods and also cosmic horror. Or, alternatively, a wild west adventure that takes place on a massive space station rapidly falling out of orbit into a star.
If you’re interested, here’s one of my favorite stand-alone songs from Ulysses Dies at Dawn and a link to their spotify page!
