THE DEVIL'S MONTH: March 2025
Rounding up some of the finest releases of the previous month - including Andy's picks too!
So we’re well into the swing of 2025 and, well, so far it’s not looking great, is it? Gone is the ill-fated optimism of those half-drunken new year’s resolutions, we’ve all said “fuck it” and went back to our vices, while the world keeps crumbling around us. This is most emphatically not fine, but one thing we can do is to keep supporting culture and art however we can, and in the specific case of this little rag here, to keep pointing at weird music we think you should listen to. And preferably getting it from our sisters and brothers in arms, Mondo Negro record store, because they are awesome people too. So without further ado, here are José’s and Andy’s picks for the least worst pissed off music you should have paid attention to during the past month. We’re always eager to know what you did pay attention to though, so don’t hesitate to tell us what your March favourites have been, okay?
Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz
Técnicas De Morte
(Sentient Ruin Laboratories)
“Sinister and cemeterial raw nekro-hardcore churned from the gutters and graveyards of Curitiba, Brazil,” says here in the typically excellent blurb provided by the Sentient Ruin promo system, so I’ll save a couple of my few remaining brain cells by trying to come up with some fancy description for what these guys sound like, because that totally nails it. A few big-name comparisons are also thrown out in that text, but you know, it’s the right big names, like Rudimentary Peni, G.I.S.M. or Christian Death, so that’s okay. Though immediate, their take on this vibe has some subtlety underneath, and there’s some real depth underneath the charging d-beats. From Test to Deafkids, not forgetting old pioneers like the legendary Ratos de Porão, Brazil’s punk and metalpunk scene has always been a fertile source for raw, no-fucks-given yet uniquely forward-thinking bands, and Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz look to be another great name to add to that list, with the added advantage of their Southern origin of Curitiba, away from the usual bigger city spots like São Paulo.
Deafheaven
Lonely People With Power
(Roadrunner Records)
I’ve always wanted to like Deafheaven more. I absolutely love how they pissed off all the genre purists and oh-so-fragile defenders of black metal “purity” simply by making an album with a pink cover, or not wearing the correct BM outfits or makeup or whatever it was. There’s no women in the band, so it wasn’t that. Unfortunately, despite totally rooting for them against the knucklehead brigade, the last time I was seriously excited about a Deafheaven release was when they put out their demo, and believe me when I say I really hate to be that guy. I was properly blown away by it and I even picked them for a weekly feature I had at the time on the Terrorizer (R.I.P.) website called “José’s Band of the Week” (yeah, that idea is not new) when no one even know who they were. I don’t hate their records or anything, but to me they’ve always felt short of the primal energy I got from those initial four songs. Well, until now - my first listen of ‘Lonely People With Power’ (I started with the ‘Magnolia’ advance song, but it doesn’t matter because this is a clear case of all killer/no filler) immediately brought back the rush and the exhilaration I’ve been longingly yearning for all these years. Not forgetting the post-punk/rock and shoegaze excursions they’ve been on for the past few years, incorporating the more sensitive and clean moments very well within the specific framework of this album, they however ultimately become enriching elements to the overall black metalness of it all. Even if you don’t want to pick a prevailing genre, and look at the record as an amalgamation of everything Deafheaven ever did really well, it’s the ferociousness and intensity that most stick out, which they manage to always couple with a memorable, melancholic, melodic edge. At the top of their songwriting powers, they even let you almost reach the end before delivering the motherload, their best song ever, the masterpiece that is ‘Winona’, a real contender for song of the year and the new one to put on whenever someone asks “so this Deafheaven thing, what are they all about?” Welcome back, gentlemen.
Dun Ringill
150 - Where The Old Gods Play - Act 2
(The Sign Records)
Close to reaching the conclusion of their first decade as a band, Gothenburg’s Dun Ringill have had an intriguing trajectory so far, and even if they don’t add anything to it in the next couple of years, you can already assess this first decade as an artistic success, especially with this very strong album as its conclusion. It does indeed feel like a conclusion in several aspects, most obviously as it is, as you could have guessed by the title, the second part of the story started with 2023’s ‘Act 1’. That record was already a sort of beefing up of their sound, which has typically been a mixture between doom metal, folk and a little prog, but ‘Act 2’ nails it even better. Not losing the sort of playful and even sometimes danceable quality the folk element brings, things are clearly darker and more sinister than before in these six songs, which doesn’t necessarily mean that the doom metal parts are more dominant or anything like that - it’s really in the inherent vibe of the songwriting that you can feel the heavier, darker atmospere. In terms of performance, excellency is assured by everyone, including vocalist Thomas Eriksson whose pleasantly rough voice holds up well as a vehicle for the storytelling and carries the melodies with aplomb, adding theatrical flair when needed and metal aggression when required. Suggestion - play the two acts as one big doom-folk-prog film developing in your head and you’re in for a treat!
Iggor Cavalera | Shane Embury
Neon Gods / Own Your Darkness
(Cold Spring Records)
Two of the coolest dudes in metal go full sinister on us with a dark ambient/industrial/electronic release, how can you resist that? Though it’s obviously not the first time (by far) that these two legends go down this path, it’s great to see them display their array of talent like this, achieving a similar kind of catharsis and dread that they have before, with the old Sepultura or Napalm Death records we all know and love, in a completely different musical setting - also, on the perfect label for it, Cold Spring. It’s the Brazilian who kicks off proceedings on side A with a brooding, increasingly confrontational track - waves of drone are washed with harsh feedback, and even when a sort of respite comes later on with a more quiet section, it still feels so menacing that it only adds to the tension. It’s twenty minutes of building anxiety, only for Shane to kick it into the stratosphere right after, with a surprisingly dynamic, John Carpenter-like soundtrack to an imaginary and particularly bleak alien invasion film that presumably ends with the aliens winning and obliterating the last remnants of humanity off this planet, such is the hopelessness evoked by the final minutes. Says here it’s Shane’s first experience with a Solar 42 synth, and well, I’d say keep going at it, lad! Though a split, the two tracks feel very complimentary and you can easily even forget who’s doing what and listen to the whole thing as a long, foreboding, headache-inducing piece.
Rwake
The Return Of Magik
(Relapse Records)
Sure, ‘Rest’ was almost unbelievably good, one of the very best albums of not only 2011 but of this whole wretched century, but goddamn it guys, did you have to make us wait almost fourteen years for another album? I mean, yeah, they probably did. Rwake have always moved through a space and time that is uniquely their own - in an age where it seems you have to tag your music and fine tune it to a specific algorithm-feeding audience until its air and freedom and personality are entirely sucked out if you want to have any kind of success, these people throw spaced-out psychedelia, beautiful acoustics, unbearably heavy sludge, Americana, rageful (post-)black metal, hardcore and mind-bendingly supernatural lyrics (to describe them gently) into the pot with a disarming, free-flowing naturality. While it never feels like exceedingly complicated music when you’re in the thick of it (and it does get thick, with most songs happily trodding through the ten-minute mark), there’s so much going on, frequently at once, in ‘The Return Of Magik’ that it seems nigh-on impossible, once you start describing, that it would ever make sense. And yet, in between a beautiful guitar lead shooting off into the horizon, a shrieked voice (did I mention how awesomely CT and Brittany’s voices complement each other throughout?), a metalcore-like breakdown and a lyrical passage involving the cosmos and Lucifer, it might just feel like it’s every other song you ever heard that just stopped making sense when compared to this. Oh, and if ‘Rest’s ‘It Was Beautiful But Now It's Sour’ seemed to have easily claimed the title of Rwake’s best song forever, there’s also now a little ditty called ‘You Swore We’d Always Be Together’ doing its best to kick it off of that particular podium. Album of the year contender alert, dear friends.
Benefits - Constant Noise (Invada Records)
A hugely necessary record given the current state we all find ourselves in. At times this modern ambient adjacent instrumentation underscores the icy isolationism and heart of despair of modern Britain. ‘Lies and Fear’ features my bandmate, Neil Cooper, unleashing fury while the walls close in. ‘Continual’ trembles with spectral vox humana and is absolutely devastating. At the time of writing this the current UK government is suggesting that Netflix drama, ‘Adolescence’ be shown in schools. I think the same schools should add ‘Constant Noise’ to their curriculum.
Fucked Up - Disabuse/Self-Driving Man (Sub Pop)
Feeling let down? Bereft? Helpless? Fucked off? Then this is for you. Canadian hardcore legends Fucked Up have gone full Poison Idea on this 7” and it’s just the tonic. I had to restrain myself from smashing the place up while it was blasting through my speakers. The D-Beats, pick slides, chromatic riffing, eye-bulging vocals and overall ferocity make this a cathartic tour-de-force and a blazing torch for the life affirming power of punk rock music. Fanfuckingtastic. Try putting a tariff on this you fucking orange asshat.
Monovoid - Immense Collapse (self-released)
Cavernous head-fuckery produced by Wayne Adams at Bear Bites Horse Studios in London. Monovoid deliver whiplash inducing riffs and epic vocals in the Shudder To Think, At The Drive-In/The Mars Volta mould. On the surface this presents itself as a fierce wallop of dense guitars but further listens reveal hints of death metal, prog and sludge. The harmony guitar section midway through is more akin to Terry Riley than Thin Lizzy and the unpredictable nature of the arrangement is compelling throughout. An album is due out later this year.
[slab] - Taut (self-released)
Excellent album from this Manchester trio who harness their deft, sensitive instrumentation with explosive bursts of power and plaintive, considered, vocals. Opener ‘Deliverance’ somehow manages to evoke early Floyd, Slint, King Crimson, Radiohead and Wire in its 4:28 running time while simultaneously setting the scene for their unique sound which follows. Restraint and release are key components of their make up and pealing guitars swell into squalls over warm gusts of bass and captivating drum patterns. ‘Multikim’ references Kim Gordon/Sonic Youth and showcases how this trio don’t leave any part of their instrumentation to waste. Sonically it’s so involving that not only does the record sound like you’re in a room with them but also suggests you’re hearing their alchemy unfold in real time.
‘Ready For The Light’ is one of the most emotive and affecting pieces of guitar music in recent years and closer ‘Possession’ is just under seven minutes of gorgeousness. As near perfect a collection of tracks as can be and very, very highly recommended.
Tenebrous LIAR - Hell Never Called (Deathto)
More wondrous noise from Steve Gullick’s Tenebrous LIAR project. Bashed and bruised guitars snake around basement dwelling nearly-blues while loose limbed grooves and heavy lidded vocals make themselves at home in the dank space while thrillingly barely-in-control feedback speaks in tongues around them. Shades of Caspar Brötzmann and Keiji Haino in the amp wrangling department while ‘The Farmer’ and ‘Collision’ display hefty and feral Neil Young chops. It’s all so effortlessly alive and is very much crying out to be played in the dark.
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