Dance With the Dead is a synthwave music duo from Orange County, California, consisting of Justin Pointer and Tony Kim.

"Dance with the Dead showed up on the radar in 2013 with their solid debut album titled “Out of Body” and quickly became regular guest of many Retrowave playlists. It was a good mix of 80s pastiches with a dark twist. Dark synthwave just sort of started forming as a subgenre and this release perfectly complemented Lazerhawk’s “Skull and Shark” LP released around the same time.

Fast forward to 2016 and DWTD have several releases behind them and what seems a frenzied following. Dark synthwave is booming, even spawning a couple of small specialized live festivals in Europe. Perturbator, Carpenter Brut, all enjoy cult status and are very often a starting point for all the newcomers to synthwave.

The basic formula – faster tempo, minor keys and distorted arpeggiated synths – is now generally known to all and has truly helped to carve out a strong niche. The Shape alone has generated incredible buzz from raving fans, the kind that orthodox synthwave producers can still only dream of."

newretrowave.com

"Shreddy California dark synthwave duo Dance with the Dead are bonafide veterans now. Loved to Death, which came out earlier this month, is their eighth studio album since the band burst upon the nascent dark synthwave scene in 2013. Their combination of vintage analog synth tones, hooky metal riffs, shreddy guitars and over-the-top nostalgic nerdery have endured them to synthwave fans across the globe, and their live shows have become bonafide events.

Dance with the Dead’s latest, Loved to Death, keeps true with the band’s M.O. by striking just the right balance of synth pop and balls to the wall metal. Tracks like “Into the Shadows” (with an assist from San Diego venue Brick by Brick owner Nick Hipa, who also toured with the band handling sound and visuals) go hard in the paint with chugged riffs from start to finish and blazing leads sprinkled throughout, while “Portraits” slows things down a touch into dreamy ballad territory (by dark synthwave standards, anyway), using an undulating bass synth backbone to keep things moving along. “Salem” manages to do both at once, with synths both driving the melody and creating the atmosphere but with distorted guitars ever-present for a little extra oomph throughout. “War” is just flat out nasty electronica, deep and dark, like something that would fit right into a GosT set. In other words: it’s a Dance with the Dead album! It’s everything you and I both love about dark synthwave, and it’s fucking great."

metalsucks.net

"When I listen to Dance with the Dead, I feel like I’m in a video game that’s a mix of vampires, werewolves, Dynasty Warriors and some intense ’80s action sequences. Every song can make you imagine a different parallel reality and this music just takes you places."

1428elm.com