Mesh – The Truth Doesn't Matter

Mesh are Mark Hockings and Richard Silverthorn, a Bristol duo who have been crafting synthpop since the early nineties. “The Truth Doesn’t Matter” is their eighth studio album and their first in ten years. Sixteen tracks on Dependent Records. The wait was worth it.

The album arrives at exactly the right moment. Post-truth politics, disinformation, social fracture, AI proliferation. The world Mesh are writing about is the one everyone is living in. The title is both an observation and an indictment, and the album earns it across every one of its sixteen tracks without a filler among them.

“Exile” is the standout for us. Classic futurepop with sharp, sterile, digital synthesis and a chorus that lodges immediately and stays there. This one will be in club rotation for years. The title track opens the album in grand cinematic fashion, Mark Hockings’ voice building from restrained to urgent above driving electronic production. “A Storm Is Coming” follows with angular sequences and atmospheric energy that functions almost like a state-of-the-nation address filtered through dancefloor instincts.

The album covers emotional ground as well as political. “I Lost a Friend Today” is quietly devastating, Hockings singing about grief with a vulnerability that is rare in this genre. “Bury Me Again” brings in Mari Kattman for a vocal interplay that is one of the album’s genuine highlights, two voices presenting two sides of the same collapse. “This World” is the most cinematic piece on the record, layered and epic in a way that would suit a film score without losing its identity as a Mesh track.

What makes the album work as a whole is the balance. Dance floor tracks, emotional ballads, instrumentals that function as proper transitions rather than padding, and a closing track in “Be Kind” that delivers exactly the message the album has been building toward. Simple, necessary, and somehow harder to argue with than anything else released this year.

Three decades in and Mesh are still setting the standard.

Label: Dependent Records Released: March 27, 2026