THE DEVIL'S MONTH: April 2024
Rounding up some of the finest releases of the previous month - now including Andy's picks too!
Ever since this wonderful collaboration between The Devil’s Mouth and Mondo Negro began, over a year ago, we’ve had the pleasure of amplifying the voice of hundreds of bands and suggesting you hours and hours of awesome alternative music. We do like to scour the depths of the underground to bring you some less than obvious tips, but sometimes we are faced with the undeniable and unavoidable heavy-hitters that simply demand their presence. April has kinda been one of those months - with records by such immortal gods like Darkthrone, High On Fire or My Dying Bride, our picks this month are slightly more obvious than usual, but hey, the good news is that it’s not only the kids doing alright - the old dudes, at least according to this exceptional sample, are also doing quite alright, releasing albums that more than hold up to their illustrious past.
Also, the great Andy Cairns is still with us - honestly, it wouldn’t feel like The Devil’s Month without Andy’s Picks anymore! - adding his own great selections, and this month he seems to have had a particularly profitable Bandcamp run, coming up with five blistering records that you can challenge the endurance of your eardrums with straight from the players on this page.
Onwards!
Couch Slut
You Could Do It Tonight
(Brutal Panda)
Couch Slut have been bubbling - or, rather, perhaps you come up with a more menacing metaphorical action than “bubbling”, which sounds all too sweet for what these people are up to - under the surface for a while, their brutally explicit album covers and unflinchingly raw and honest lyrics, but now, after playing a couple of shows at Roadburn and with this, their most impactful and well-produced album yet, a sort of Chat Pile-like explosion seems to be about to happen. It’s well-deserved, too. Few bands are as un-dismissable as Couch Slut - you will come for their angular, massively heavy noise rock and the seemingly free-form insanely intense vocals of Megan Osztrosits (a self-destroying, unhinged force of bad nature on a live setting, on top of it), but you will stay for the harrowingly real tales of abuse, bitterness and hatred. It won’t be any fun, but you’ll fucking take it anyway.
Darkthrone
It Beckons Us All.......
(Peaceville)
For long-time Darkthrone fans, it’s not even a question of wondering if Fenriz is poking fun at us or not. Of course he is, and by now that’s a part of it. The thing is, no matter how many different phases Darkthrone have been through, whether you liked them or not, there always seemed to be a certain direction. Unplanned, spontaneous, a bit mad - sure, all of those. But direction nevertheless. Also, the phases never lasted more than three or four records. However, since the career-defining (for this side of the 21st century at least) ‘The Underground Resistance’, the duo have appeared to be more meandering and more unsure than usual. Not to say that they have all been lesser records - opinions differ wildly, of course, I’d personlly rate ‘Arctic Thunder’ and ‘Eternal Hails......’ (and come on Gylve, enough with the dots already, no?) as really cool, but the fact remains that none of them are really Darkthrone classics as such, not even in hindsight, and it feels like this “slow heavy metal” kind of thing is proving difficult to move away from. ‘It Beckons Us All.......’, and yes, I’m copy/pasting the fucking dots each time to get the number right, offers some hope. While not completely far removed from the recent past, by injecting an unheard of (for them) amount of psychedelia into a riff-heavy songwriting template that seems to mix Cathedral, Mercyful Fate and the usual sprinkling of Celtic Frost, it’s the first Darkthrone record in a long time that doesn’t elicit an “oh, another one of these” on the first listen. Fenriz plays around a lot with his vocals, and some of the highlights, like the colossal closer ‘The Lone Pines Of The Lost Planet’ really feel like bringing something new to a very overcrowded table. Stuff like the pointless instrumental midway through or the bland ‘The Heavy Hand’ doesn’t belong in a 2024 Darkthrone album no matter how you cut it, but overall the really good far outweighs the indifferent, and in the end it feels like this could be a much-needed transitional record towards a more radically different, horizon-searching next step. As always with these people, we won’t have any idea if it is until that next step actually gets here. But here’s hoping.
Harvestman
Triptych Part One
(Neurot Recordings)
A few years ago, I asked Steve during an interview if he thought his two solo projects, Harvestman and the stuff he does under his own name, would eventually merge in the future - at that time, what he was doing with the two (including live shows where he was actually billed as Harvestman/Steve Von Till and played material from both sides) really seemed to be converging. As time and releases have gone by, however, the evolution has turned out to be really separate. Harvestman occupies its own place, without any vocals, representing Steve’s more abstract psych tendencies (not to mention his love of ancient monuments), and the subtle way he has of twisting ambient, drone, “pure” folk and even some kraut bits into something decidedly less mechanical or cold than what can be gathered from that genre description. That’s the biggest merit on this first part of a triptych that will accompany the full moon cycles throughout 2024: that often minimalist loops and shards of synth noises become, without any great fuss or particular adorning, true pieces of music able to activate your emotions in an effortless, naturally flowing way.
High On Fire
Cometh The Storm
(MNRK Heavy)
Them riffs, man. Even if you just pull them out of the record, ignore all arrangements, vocals and parts that actually make the songs be songs, this would still be a massive achievement. Lots of bands have “riff vaults”, but I’d wager that very few have a vault that rivals that of High On Fire. What could be a tentative, hesitant album, after six years without a full-length and with a crucial line-up change (for a three-piece, it’s always tough) along the way, turns out to be a mountain-shaking achievement, even for a band with as rich a catalogue as these guys. Coady Willis, the new drummer, whom you surely know from Big Business and Melvins, is a beast that seems to possess eigth arms and four legs, which really helped turn the difficult task of replacing the departed Des Kensel into a spectacular addition to the High On Fire arsenal, but every department seems to have upped the ante dramatically. Bassist Jeff Matz taking a deep dive into Turkish music in the past few years is something that has been incorporated wonderfully well into the sound of the band, and those influences that Matt Pike already had (he is of part Turkish descent, as it turns out) are now a full-blown characteristic, and songs like ‘Karanlık Yol’ or ‘Solγçös Golden Curse’, for instance, do take full advantage of it to become even bigger behemoths of sound, crushing all in their path. Less meandering and much more to-the-point than the last couple of records but still much more intricate than the initial beating of the senses leads you to believe at first, ‘Cometh The Storm’ is one of the very best High On Fire albums ever. And that’s saying something.
My Dying Bride
A Mortal Binding
(Nuclear Blast)
Few bands are as consistent as My Dying Bride have been throughout the years, reaching the 34th year of their career with their legacy untouched, still headlining festivals, still being relevant and pretty much on top of the doom metal mountain, and still releasing serious quality albums. ‘A Mortal Binding’ comes after a pair of particularly great efforts which have greatly revitalised the band, 2015’s ‘Feel The Misery’ and particularly 2020’s superb ‘The Ghost Of Orion’, and from the very first listen it’s clear that it is a very worthy continuation of that modern doom classic. The opening three songs build a pretty much perfect twenty minutes of elegant, crushing misery, with Andrew Craighan’s monstrous riffage conquering all in its path (you didn’t miss the podcast episode where we talked to the guitarist/songwriter about this record, did you?) and Aaron Stainthorpe in typical tremendous form, fabulously roaring and crooning his way through yet another dramatic tour de force. Currently the band seems to be in an unfortunate place, having cancelled all touring plans and admitting some internal turmoil, but here’s hoping that everything can be solved soon. This is one remaining metal classic that we really can’t afford to lose.
Dynamite - Blow The Bloody Doors Off! (Bandcamp)
This is full on, raucous London hardcore at its finest. Stripped back arrangements, nothing wasted, no faffing about and all the better for it.
Hubert Selby Jr Infants - Have You Ever Been a Crow..Or An Eel (Bandcamp)
Irish band, fresh from touring their homeland with the mighty Bloody Head. First listens suggest influences of 90’s alt-rock, specifically Dinosaur Jr and Kerbdog, but further plays reveal a gift for extracting vocal melodies from belligerent and dense chord structures. ‘People Skills’ has gorgeous arpeggiated guitar that wouldn’t be out of place on a The Jesus Lizard record and the wonderful ‘Misery Hill’ manages to meld Drive Like Jehu riffing, At The Drive-In dynamics and anthemic vocals into one. ‘Yes/No’ ends the EP with a bit of modern space rock.
K-Hole - Discordant (Bandcamp)
From Buffalo, NY, K-Hole play a unique take on hardcore with malevolent, discordant guitars churning in tar and delivered with pitiless forward momentum. ‘Saving Face’ starts with ‘My War’ side B vibes en route to becoming a 21st century Die Kreuzen-style stomper. The closing ‘Untitled’ is a basement dwelling head fuck of a track bent out of shape by its spiteful guitars.
Objections - Optimistic Sizing (Wrong Speed Records)
This is superb and one of those albums to play someone when they start banging on about guitar music being dead and trad instrumentation running out of ideas as, frankly, Objections have more ideas in a track than most bands fit on an album. Every tune on this collection reverberates with its own singularity. My personal highlight is ‘Excuses’ with its serrated guitar and underlying skipping rhythm. It’s arranged almost like a dance track and then heads off into a Michael Karoli style guitar wig out and trance vocals towards the latter part of the tune. It’s all a very unique sound, there are tiny reminders of Uzeda, Shellac, Gang Of Four and even Delta 5 but ultimately their bold identity takes most authority.
Schkeuditzer Kreuz - Ratchet // Amerika 24 (Bandcamp)
From Lawson, Australia, the latest from this self styled “D-Beat Raw Synth Punk” comes out of the speakers with blown-out organ vamps over assertive industrial strut with a carny creepiness on ‘Ratchet’, like ‘Carnival Of Souls’ soundtracked by an angry loner. ‘Amerika 24’ is a crust punk Ministry, all distorted beats, fizzing synth riffs and Halloween top line keyboard melodies. Dystopian samples and hectoring voices aggregate the paranoia leaving the vocals building to a grand gothic denouement.
Lovely, I am scanning and will be upgrading soon matey.