THE DEVIL'S MONTH: February 2024
Rounding up some of the finest releases of the previous month - now with a very special guest helping out!
So we’ve had our one year anniversary of The Devil’s Month, the lovely people at Mondo Negro record store keep powering this collaboration, you guys have been great with all your feedback and reactions, we might as well rest on our laurels, right? Or, alternatively, how about we, like, you know, give you a revamped feature that is TWICE THE SIZE of the usual ones?
That’s right, now besides the usual five The Devil’s Mouth monthly suggestions, we managed to rope in a remarkable gentleman - a rock superstar, a purveyor of the finest riffage, an iconic frontman and also, as you will be aware in a minute, a fantastic music recommender. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to our fold none other than Mr. Andy Cairns of the mighty Therapy?, who will be adding his Andy’s Picks to each The Devil’s Month. In total, we’re giving you eleven fucking records to chew on today - heaviness, psychedelia, weirdness, melody, experimentalism, intensity, it’s all here. You are welcome!
Please be as vocal as you can welcoming Andy in the comments, and don’t forget to tell us what was your favourite suggestion of the month! Who wins February 2024 - Andy or José? The race is on!
Haystack
Doomsday Goes Away
(Threeman Recordings)
Remember Haystack? After Entombed toured with Unsane in the US during the early 90s, guitarist Ulf “Uffe” Cederlund was so impressed that he put together his own power trio in 1994, so exactly 30 years ago already. Fuck, we’re old. Being blown away by Unsane is pretty much all the reason you need to start a band, but yeah, with all the right other influences besides, like Steel Pole Bath Tub, Helmet, Melvins or Dinosaur Jr, Haystack actually ended up being quite good, adding their own bluesy, garagey twist to the noise rock canon. They weren’t active for long but the two records they did in that time, ‘Right At You’ and ‘Slave Me’, still hold up really well today. Without much fanfare once again, Uffe reactivated Haystack again a few years ago, having released ‘The Sacrifice’ in 2019, basically picking up where he had left off in 1998. If the wheel turns, there’s no need to come up with wheel 2.0, right? ‘Doomsday Goes Away’ goes that way too. You know exactly what you’ll get with it, and in fact, in 2024, the absence of any frills or unnecessary bells and whistles is a huge plus for this kind of thing. Being simple doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have variety, either. The massive grooves of the title track provide the perfect openin salvo, while energetic, catchy rockers like ‘Burning Eye’ would get massive airplay in a fair and just world. Elsewhere, ‘Neglected’ slows things down to a menacing and deceptively quiet snarl, and ‘Winter’ closes proceedings out in style, a massively atmospheric, melancholic stomper. Sounding like the 90s without any mouldy nostalgia attached to it is trickier than it sounds, but Haystack totally nail it.
Ihsahn
Ihsahn
(Candlelight)
One of the most celebrated episodes of our podcast in recent times has precisely been the one where we had Ihsahn as a guest (here), and you won’t find a better introduction and guide to this enormous undertaking than that particular conversation, so I will cordially invite you to have a listen. In short, this is arguably the Norwegian musician’s most ambitious project to date, a colossal album that is actually two albums - it comes as a metal version with the “normal” songs and an orchestral version with the orchestra-only instrumentals -, which for once isn’t a gimmick or a bonus. Both versions are part of the same conceptual, storytelling whole, and once you get your head round everything that Ihsahn is throwing at you here, it will feel like the most glorious moments of entertainment that you might remember. Not pretentious stuff, but you know, the first time you watched the uncut versions of the ‘Lord Of The Rings’ films all in one sitting, or the moment when you got out of the vault and looked around on a Fallout game, that sort of thing. The sense that there is an entire world waiting for you to discover and explore it, and the knowing that you will enjoy every minute of it, challenging as it might be. Because that’s the thing, even though this appropriately self-titled piece (I now hesitate to reduce it by calling it an “album”, that’s how affecting it is) will not be tackled or fully revealed easily, and while none of it is wallpaper music, while the scope of ambition in the songwriting, with the orchestration, the grandiosity, the fury, the cinematic feel of it all, is the most impressive thing about it… even with all of those things, never does a second of it feel forced, or overblown, or just too “intellectual” for its own good. You can listen to the two versions and fully immerse yourself in the story and make an afternoon of it, or you can just put on your favourite bangers (‘Blood Trails To Love’ and ‘Pilgrimage To Oblivion’ in my case) on a quick train ride and it will work both ways. If you ever liked Ihsahn, you should be all over this. There’s strands of Emperor, of course, both of the ‘…Eclipse’ and ‘Prometheus’ kind, there’s Thou Shalt Suffer, there’s the more adventurous ‘Das Seelenbrechen’-type stuff but also the more angular ‘After’ kind of opaqueness, there’s Hollywood soundtracks, and there’s the very important plunge into uncharted territories - both for Ihsahn and for everyone else - sometimes. So, better sharpen up your tools, future 2024 album of the year contenders. A giant is now roaming the ring.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Of The Last Human Being
(Avant Night)
I feel like starting yet another blurb as I did the Haystack one (even if that one isn’t technically a comeback anymore), going like “remember Sleepytime Gorilla Museum?” In this case, even more than Haystack, you really really should. As a quitessential wildly experimental band that’s not exactly of the 90s (they were formed right there at the end in 1999) but clearly a product of the craziness that went on in heavy/alternative music during that decade, including the other bands their musicians used to be in, they’re one of those quirky, theatrical, impossible to ignore anomalies that boring old traditionalists love to hate. Blending restless, unpredictable industrial-tinged art rock, elaborate theatrics, dadaism and a hilarious meta approach to everything, they were the sort of band that you could easily write your thesis essay about. However, much like what I just said about Ihsahn’s new album right above this, none of it ever sounded pretentious or fake-smart just for the hell of it, it never felt like an exclusive nerds-only kind of band. You can ignore all the references and all the artsy stuff and just let yourself go in the immense waves of the music. It’s a big statement, because the fucked up world we live in clearly needs a few essential things right now that are more crucial than any stupid little band, but I would still maintain that at least the cultural world, to put it like that, needs bands like SGM to exist. We need to know that it’s still possible to not join the herd, to be like no one else, to give zero fucks about enforced rules and preconceptions. So, fortunately, after a twelve year hiatus, they got back together last year, and the result for now is ‘Of The Last Human Being’. To be honest, knowing the band, no fancy detailed review is necessary, as this feels exactly like the next logical step after ‘In Glorious Times’ where they left us off back in 2007. A delirious dark and twisted vaudeville that bounces happily from ecstatically demented to brooding and terrifying in mood, and even steps out of the confines of “rock” music more than they ever did, with some of the instrumentation used this time - as you might know, the band has been famous for using “instruments” such as a Viking rowboat, Fisher Price toys or their own modified versions of normal instruments like The Sledge Hammer Dulcimer, for instance, which is seven foot long monstrous bass equipped with piano strings. But hey, enough spoilers. And don’t take any of it from me. Half of the fun of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is the journey of discovery itself, so go, go, go. Don’t look back.
Spectral Voice
Sparagmos
(Dark Descent)
Some of you might still look at Spectral Voice as Blood Incantation with another drummer - I’ve actually seen a show where they opened for them, and Paul, Morris and Jeff didn’t even leave the stage between bands as Eli Wendler took Isaac Faulk’s place behind the drumkit -, but maybe it’s time to give them a bit more credit. Especially with Blood Incantation’s journeys into Tangerine Dream-esque psych kraut territories in the past couple of years, it feels like the properly dark and foreboding material is seeping more and more into Spectral Voice. Of course, 2017’s ‘Eroded Corridors Of Unbeing’ (not to mention all the individual tracks on the smaller split releases they’ve been participating on since then) was already a pitch black headfirst dive into a long corridor full of unnamable horrors on some unexplored alien planet, but ‘Sparagmos’ adds even more extra layers of suffocating thickness to that atmosphere. Though there is a frequent impetus to rush forward and even some muffled blastbeats spread throughout these four long nightmares, a lot of it sounds essentially like a slowed down, (even more) fucked up reinterpretation of Portal, with such a threatening tension build up that you might feel your eyes watering over the sheer pressure that accumulates in your mind if you’re really focusing on what you’re listening to. I would be careful which drugs you listen to this on, to be honest.
Toadliquor
Back In The Hole
(Southern Lord)
Yeah, it seems February 2024 was the month where all the kickass bands from 30 years ago decided to come back. Did Nostradamus predict that? “Much ignored by the populace they shall be / but the noise-bearers of decades past / shall once again roam the halls / and make ecstasy in crowds of fifty at most!”, something to that effect? Maybe not, but in any case, Toadliquor are back! Their last recording had been put out over 25 years ago, and their sole album, the legendary ‘Feel My Hate - The Power Is The Weight’ (which, funnily enough, I talked a bit about with Michael and Jason from Deep Cross on a recent podcast episode), turns 31 this year. Refreshingly, since there’s still a thick cloud of mystery and anonymity around the band, we still have no idea who these people are apart from first names and a few blurry live photos, so we won’t have to go through the usual endless speculation about their true motivations for reuniting or how it was so much better with the first drummer rather than the third or whatever. We assume this is the same line-up that recorded that stuff in the 90s, but if it isn’t, no one cares. The music is basically the same too, it sounds just like the record you would have expected them to put out in 1995 or something after ‘Feel My Hate…’, with all the twisted riffs, agonizingly slow rhythms, and painfully tortured, insane vocals you would expect, except everything is wrapped up with a much better production and mix, which really works in heightening the impact. Even if you missed Toadliquor back in the day, that’s no biggie - you can stream their short career anywhere, obviously, and while I doubt you can find an affordable copy of ‘Feel My Hate…’, Southern Lord’s 2003 compilation ‘The Hortator’s Lament’ is still easy to find and will get you up to speed neatly. If you ever liked Noothgrush, Grief, Buzzov•en, Dystopia, Eyehategod or Iron Monkey, you’ll feel right at home in the filth.
Cower - Celestial Devastation (Human Worth)
There's no other way to put this, Celestial Devastation is a Goth Rock Opera. It's truly tremendous stuff featuring members of Petbrick, Ghost Of A Thousand and USA Nails. Equal parts dark industrial head fuck and mournful poetic observations on modern living, this is that rare thing that takes you into its orbit and next thing you know you're living in its gorgeously constructed world. In a just world 'Hard-Coded In The Souls Of Men' would be a global smash with its epic Depeche Mode meets Lorn melancholia. 'Aging Stallions' is beautiful, majestic and catchy as fuck. Wayne Adams has talked in the past about his love of late period Type O Negative and it shows at times in the spectral high end of some of the noises in this record. The final track 'Bury Me In The Lawless Lands Of The West' manages to mix together early Sisters Of Mercy, Home Front, Faith No More and Pet Shop Boys. You need this record in your life.
Dez Dare - A Billion Goats. A Billion Sparks. Fin. (God Unknown Records)
More great tunes from Aussie garage rock adventurer, Dez Dare. The fuzzy riffs are intercut with electronic bleeps and strange frequencies that set this album apart from other lo fi Nuggets worship. At times there's almost a Helios Creed vibe to the guitars and bits of it are not unlike Timmy's Organism but it's got an aesthetic all of its own. Tunes like 'The Elasticity Of Knowing' and 'Entangled Entropy' are enthralling while 'Josephine Says Explode' could be Wire with a fuzz pedal.
Island Apes - Island Apes (God Unknown Records)
Stomping noise with psyche and space rock elements from the East Midlands and featuring members of Fudge Tunnel, Force Fed and Bivouac. Lots of lurching rhythms, gurgling claustrophobic vocals and coiled tight guitar work. The guitar sound seems to manage to be simultaneously bright and doomy while the fx'd vocals and clipped bass add a nervous synchopation to the vibe. The psychedelic breakdown in 'KOB' sets up a heads down Hawkwind-punk section very nicely before collapsing in on itself again several times and the track 'Leah' is just downright gorgeous.
Nocturnal Reaper - Nocturnal Reaper (self-released)
From Surrey, this is a furious mix of NWOBHM and ‘Kill 'Em All’-era Metallica with a very unique vocal which I can only describe as “Venom cover ‘Orgasmatron’”. The riffs on offer here go straight to the point, no fucking around and they pile on top of each other. I was grinning the whole way through this on first listen, it's all so infectious and delivered with such brio that it's best to just get swept away with its exuberance. Looking forward to hearing more from Nocturnal Reaper.
The Bug - Machine V (Pressure)
I've been a fan of Kevin Martin for a long time and 'Black' from last year is one of my favourite albums. On this there is a metal-like intensity that's enabled by sinuous bass lines, his usual dub alchemy and industrial fireworks. Opener 'Buried (Your Life Is Short)' is described on Bandcamp as "sounding like a chopped 'n' screwed Pantera instrumental remixed by Scientist" and that gives you an idea of its joyous noise and sparring groove. There are riffs aplenty on all the tunes here. It's got to be played loud as fuck on speakers that can handle bass weight. This is superb.
Thee Alcoholics - Feedback (Rocket Recordings)
This an absolute gargantuan record, overpowering in every sense. Been a fan of them for a while but this just locks in straight away. Repetition seems to be the key here and it's a hard thing to do right but the riffs spin off in compelling directions and the monstrous, clanking snare drum drags you back in when you lose your bearings among the hypnotic cacophony. It's style adjacent with Big Black, and at times puts me in mind of ‘Pure’-era Jesus Lizard but with 21st century production values. The title track is a relentless gallop with thrilling guitar seeping in and out of the mix. 'You're The Zero' seems hell bent on fighting its way out of a panic attack. 'SE23' could be from The Cure's 'Pornography' album by way of Neu! and Loop. You have to listen to this as a whole and then play it again. It's a genuinely thrilling rock record that takes no time to make an impact but rewards further, deeper listening.