Reset 89 is Wakefield’s project, and *Influence* is its second album: a bleak, funny, frequently thrilling dissection of the online condition. If the first record channelled the geopolitical grief of a war-torn continent, this one turns its eye closer to home \u2014 to the glowing rectangle in your pocket, the dopamine slot machine, the hall of mirrors we’ve cheerfully agreed to call social life. The subject matter could easily produce something preachy and obvious. Instead, Wakefield produces something preachy and *brilliant*, which is an altogether rarer achievement.<\/p>
The record opens with the crunch of hardware grooveboxes \u2014 the Synthstrom Audible Deluge and Ableton Push 3 are credited, and you can almost smell the solder \u2014 before guitars pile in with the enthusiasm of a bouncer who’s been waiting all night for trouble. This is the sonic vocabulary of Nine Inch Nails, New Order, Gary Numan, and The Cure, filtered through someone who clearly spent the mid-90s absorbing all of it while nursing a grudge. The influences are worn openly, honestly, and without apology. Good. Apology is for people who aren’t sure they’re right. Wakefield sounds very sure.<\/p>
*Conspiracy Guy* is the record’s first genuine standout \u2014 a precise surgical strike on the terminally credulous, those tireless spreaders of digital nonsense who’ve mistaken paranoia for enlightenment. The lyric is sharp-elbowed without descending into mockery that flatters itself. It simply observes, deadpan, the way a good satirist should. *RTFM* \u2014 and yes, you may expand that acronym yourself \u2014 is the album’s funniest moment: a sarcastic broadside at the species of internet user who asks a forum before attempting independent thought. It is also, perversely, one of the most propulsive tracks here, the synthetic kick drum landing with the satisfaction of a door slammed in an argument you’ve just won.<\/p>
*Fame Addiction* and *The Influencer* circle the same wounded territory \u2014 the narcissism engine, the endless performance of a self that never quite solidifies \u2014 and together they form the emotional core of what *Influence* is actually doing. This is not merely a record that criticises social media. It is a record that understands its seductiveness, that knows precisely why the trap is so well-sprung. Wakefield is not writing from a position of smug detachment. He sounds like someone who has stood at the edge of the same precipice and chosen \u2014 barely \u2014 to step back.<\/span><\/p> The production deserves its own paragraph. Multi-layered guitars tracked over hardware stems, vocals usually doubled or tripled, distortion and saturation applied, as Wakefield himself puts it, to *everything*. The remarkable thing is how clear it all remains. This is the paradox of good industrial rock: the noise must be organised, the chaos must be structured. *Influence* walks that line with impressive confidence. The mixes are dense without becoming mud; the grit is always intentional, never accidental.<\/span><\/p> It helps that Wakefield spent the entirety of 2024 doing nothing else. He left his job, locked himself in his home studio, and made the record he needed to make. You can hear the commitment in the detail \u2014 no corners cut, no rough edges left rough simply because the deadline loomed. The only deadline here was his own satisfaction.<\/span><\/p> Which brings us to the central irony: *Influence*, an album about the corrosive effects of seeking validation online, has barely been heard. No promotion, no press campaign, no algorithmic manipulation. Just the music, existing quietly on streaming platforms, waiting. It is either the most coherent artistic statement of 2024 or an extraordinary act of self-sabotage. Possibly both. The Electric Reckoning suspects Wakefield would accept either verdict with equanimity.<\/span><\/p> Australia has always produced singular rock music \u2014 loud, isolated, self-reliant, occasionally furious. Reset 89 sits comfortably in that tradition while sounding entirely like nobody else currently operating within it. *Influence* is a record that deserved a larger world, and still does.<\/span><\/p> Someone go and find it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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