LowHero.DLL is the electro-alt-pop solo project of Jonathan Chalker, which is currently based in Florida. Chalker grew up on Punk and New Wave music in the late 70s and early 80s, but by the time of the very late 80s when he began making his own music, had become a staunch fan of Industrial and Gothic music. Goth had all the dark glam elements of New Wave while industrial music has the raw power of skate-punk. Chalker created Mindpeg in 1994 to shake up the Denver Goth scene then followed it up with Penetrator, which was heavy Industrial music meshed with assaulting Drum-n-Bass rhythms. Penetrator gained Chalker some attention internationally with a dedicated but somewhat limited audience.

During the mid-90s, Chalker also picked up the bass guitar for a stint in two Hardcore Punk bands - The Messy Hairs and The Drawbacks. This pulled him out of the studio and onto the stage for a while. Although he ultimately went back to solo music production, the electrifying, spontaneous, and (at times) chaotic experience playing live in the punk bands never left him and it reignited his passion for the music he’d so loved when he was a teen.

With LowHero.DLL, Chalker invokes New Wave and Punk influences such as The Normal, TSOL, Soft Cell, or Blondie while keeping the overall sound in the accessible territory of Alt-Pop. Lyrically strong, LowHero.DLL has been described as “similar to Ladytron, but with male vocals” and is often compared to Apoptygma Berzerk and The Faint. Jonathan Chalker sometimes describes LowHero.DLL as geeky music (some of the songs are written as puzzles in order to give like minded individuals something beyond the music itself to indulge in). The website also claims another more tongue-in-cheek designation - music for shy Asian women.

Feel free to give it a good listen and draw your own comparisons.