Belgian darkwave act Ultra Sunn transformed Black Cat into a sanctuary of synths, strobes, and sweat on May 7, delivering a performance that felt equally mechanical and emotional. Touring behind 2025’s The Beast in You and recent singles like “Flirt With Death,” the Brussels group arrived in DC with growing momentum — and the eager room responded immediately.
The synthesizers got the room going, and then frontman Sam Huge joined the stage with icy charisma, his deep baritone cutting through waves of pulsing bass and industrial percussion. Beside him, Gaelle Souflet and touring keyboardist/percussionist Alexis Andrigo built layers of shimmering synth textures that gave Ultra Sunn’s live show a fuller and more physical presence than a standard electronic duo setup. The three performers worked almost like a machine together, locking into hypnotic rhythms while maintaining a stylish stage presence throughout the night.
Ultra Sunn’s music pulls heavily from classic Belgian new beat, EBM, and coldwave traditions, but the band never feels trapped in nostalgia. Live, the songs hit with urgency and intensity — part goth dance party, part emotional exorcism. The Black Cat crowd embraced the atmosphere immediately. Fans dressed in leather and black denim immediately found their musical home.
The band moved fluidly between new material and fan favorites, balancing punishing dance beats with moments of melancholy and vulnerability. “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” produced one of the biggest reactions of the evening, its towering synth hooks and themes of resilience turning the room into a communal singalong beneath the venue’s flashing lights.
Watch the official music video for “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” by Ultra Sunn on YouTube:
The new songs from The Beast in You added emotional depth to the performance. Rather than relying entirely on aggression or retro aesthetics, Ultra Sunn layered anxiety, longing, and catharsis into the music. Tracks tied to the current album cycle carried a cinematic quality live, with Sam Huge stalking the stage while Souflet and Andrigo surrounded him in waves of icy electronics and pounding rhythms. The recent singles especially demonstrated how quickly Ultra Sunn has evolved from underground cult favorite into one of the defining acts in the current darkwave revival.
What stood out most during the performance was the band’s restraint and discipline. Ultra Sunn never overcrowd their arrangements. Every kick drum hit, synth pulse, and dramatic pause felt intentional. That precision gave the music enormous weight inside Black Cat’s dark and intimate room. Even quieter transitions carried tension, as though the band were carefully winding the audience tighter before unleashing another avalanche of beats.
Black Cat has been on the vanguard of hosting some great dark wave bands springing out of the latest post-punk revival, and Ultra Sunn are among the most grounded of them. They felt contemporary, channeling the DNA of classic EBM while speaking directly to a younger generation searching for themselves on the dance floor. And for a little bit, the audience found themselves within Ultra Sunn’s dark electronic world.
