If Blue Sick found you through a playlist, you have stumbled into one of the more unlikely bands in Paris. Ruin Of Romantics is a four-piece built around James Kent, the producer who records as Perturbator, and Mehdi Thepegnier of the Paris doom band Hangman's Chair. Neither is known for goth rock. Velvet Dawn, their only album, is nine songs and about 47 minutes that Apple Music files under goth rock.
It came out on October 29, 2021, and it has kept picking up listeners ever since. Here is who made it, how the record was built one single at a time, where Blue Sick fits, and the new demo that suggests the band is not finished.
Who is in Ruin Of Romantics
The album credits split the work cleanly:
- Vincent Mercier: vocals and bass
- Mehdi Thepegnier: drums, guitars and bass
- Françis Caste: guitars and backing vocals. Caste is also the producer who recorded the album at Studio Sainte Marthe.
- James Kent: synths, electronics and guitars. Kent also mixed and mastered the record himself.
That last detail matters. Kent's Perturbator records are electronic and built on machines, and here he is working as a texture player in a guitar band while still having the last word on how it all sounds. Its Bandcamp supporters keep reaching for the same band. One hears the gloomy lushness of The Cure's Disintegration, and another describes the band's early songs as The Cure with more jazz and noir in the mix.
Velvet Dawn was released one single at a time
The album did not arrive out of nowhere. A third of it was already out before release day, in a slow drip that started in December 2020:
- December 21, 2020: Helena, the band's first release, posted on Bandcamp with a single line of text: There is a sadness in this world.
- January 29, 2021: Self Control + Blue Sick, a two-song single. Self Control is a cover of the 1984 song by the Italian singer RAF, credited to Raffaele Riefoli, which Laura Branigan turned into a worldwide hit the same year. Blue Sick was the original on the flip side.
- October 1, 2021: Bleeding In The Fields, the lead single for the album.
- October 29, 2021: Velvet Dawn, with Helena, Blue Sick and Bleeding In The Fields all on it.
Here is the twist. Self Control never made the album, and it is still the band's most played song. It sits at the top of their artist pages on both Spotify and Apple Music, ahead of everything on Velvet Dawn.
Blue Sick, the song most people come in through
Blue Sick is track seven on Velvet Dawn and runs a little over six minutes, one of the longer songs on a record where only the opener From Above and Let Me Get Up go further. It runs a little over six minutes on streaming services and first appeared nine months before the album as the B-side to Self Control. On Bandcamp, most of the supporters who pick a favorite from that single choose Blue Sick, and one calls it a blend of darkwave and gothic themes. If you only have time for one track before deciding on the whole album, this is the one to play.
Velvet Dawn tracklist
- From Above: the longest song on the album, at almost seven minutes, and the slow way in.
- 7AM
- Let Me Get Up
- Bleeding In The Fields: the lead single, and a favorite among Bandcamp supporters.
- Ruin You: the shortest track, under four minutes.
- We Dead Hearts
- Blue Sick: first released in January 2021.
- Helena: the band's first release, from December 2020.
- Long Cigarette: the closer, and the favorite of one Bandcamp supporter who calls this album the most beautiful thing in Kent's entire discography.
The cover is a tight crop of pink and violet petals, part of a set of flower photographs by Stephanie Didomenico, with art direction and band photography by David Fitt. The Helena single uses the same style, a single dark peony shot close against black.
Velvet Dawn on CD and vinyl
The album is on Music Of The Void, the Paris label that also releases Perturbator's records, including Age of Aquarius in October 2025. The CD's catalog number, MOTV001, marks it as the first numbered release on the label.
- CD: a trifold digipack, still in stock at the Music Of The Void store alongside a Velvet Dawn shirt.
- Vinyl: a black vinyl LP was pressed in 2021, but it no longer appears on the label store, so used copies are the way to find one now.
- Digital: the album and both earlier singles are on the Ruin Of Romantics Bandcamp, which is the most direct way to pay the band.
What is new: the Velvet Summer demo
For four years Velvet Dawn looked like a one-off. Then on December 26, 2025, a track called Ruin Of Romantics, Velvet Summer (Demo) appeared on the official Perturbator SoundCloud. It is the first new Ruin Of Romantics music since the album, and the title and artwork both answer Velvet Dawn directly: the same close-up flower photography, now in blue.
It is labeled a demo, and nothing more has been announced. There is no release date, no new single on the band's Bandcamp and no second album on the label store as of today. Treat it as a sign of life rather than a promise.
Where to listen to Velvet Dawn
The full album streams on Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music. Remember that Self Control lives on its own single, not on the album, so add it separately.
If this is your corner, our explainer on what darkwave is and where to start maps the wider sound, Molchat Doma's Etazhi is the modern post-punk record most people know, and Clan of Xymox is one of the original darkwave bands still pressing records. The rest lives in our Industrial Music Hub.
Our call: listen, and start with Blue Sick and Helena. Those two came first and set the template for the album. Then play Velvet Dawn front to back after dark. If it sticks, buy the CD from the label while it is still in stock, since the vinyl is already gone from the official store, and follow Perturbator's SoundCloud to catch the next Velvet Summer news first.
