Ace Stallings, a guy who I know a little bit, is a tireless advocate for hardcore, punk, and metal. He hosts the great Forum Of Passion podcast, promotes shows, and sings for a bunch of bands. Stallings’ various groups — Break Away, Mutually Assured Destruction, Sentinel — don’t really sound anything like each other, but they all fit somewhere under the hardcore umbrella. But now Ace has another project, and this one isn’t so identifiably hardcore. Instead, it’s a trip into the world of dark, spacey goth-punk.

Rose Chamber, named after what might be my favorite Mutually Assured Destruction song, is the duo of Ace Stallings and his Sentinel bandmate Evan Schlomann. On Twitter, Stallings says, “I’ve always wanted to try my hand at doing a synth/new wave project. Rose Chamber is for fans of various 80’s inspirations.” The duo’s new four-song debut cassette State Of Affairs is still tough and muscular, and it makes great use of Ace’s titanic bellow. The songs are short, and the riffs are hard. But the whole sound is really on that vampire shit — drum machines, one-finger keyboard riffs, evil basslines, reverb and echo all over everything. Highlight “Past Sins” sounds a bit like what might’ve happened if Glenn Danzig had tried to become Peter Murphy. It’s really good! Check it out below.

State Of Affairs is out now on Ace Stallings’ label Raven Records.