THE DEVIL'S MONTH: May 2023
Every first Thursday we round up some of the finest releases of the previous month.
And just like that, the THE DEVIL’S MOUTH / MONDO NEGRO partnership approaches the middle point of the year! After our January, February, March and April picks, May is our fifth volume, so you’ve gotten suggestions aplenty from this already - and they will continue to pour in, as the various underground/alternative scenes around the world show no signs of letting up with kickass record after kickass record competing for our ear space. As we had promised last month, that gigantic secret is now out, with Khanate returning to activity armed with a brand new album, but there’s tons of great stuff from the last 30 days to pay attention to. Read on…
Industrial Puke
Born Into The Twisting Rope
(Suicide Records)
Okay, I’ll admit it, Industrial Puke is not necessarily the most attractive band name to start with, but bear with me and give these guys a chance, because that’s really the first and last bone of contention you might have, as everything else about them is absolutely great. Another great discovery by Suicide Records - who brought us, for instance, the sinister Blodskam, among many others -, these guys reportedly put this band together out of a love for Dismember, Disrupt and Black Breath, and let’s face it, if that description doesn’t appeal to you instantly, I would suggest an urgent upgrade to your record collection. What’s even more interesting is that although there’s an inherent Swedish-ness to this, their debut album, straight from the first song, it’s not a linear genre-defining kind of vibe. There’s the grainy death’n’roll of Dismember and Entombed, the shouty yet brainy unstoppable nature of the best Swedish hardcore (think anything from Burst to Refused), and even the nasty streak that some of the darker, more extreme acts from up there often exhibit, all rolled into a compelling, fist-in-the-air whole. It might seem surprising that a new band emerges with such a distinct personality and a supreme air of confidence in their craft, but if you look at their pics, you might notice Industrial Puke aren’t exactly young kids, and you might even recognise a face or two - that’s right, there’s some pedigree at work here. Jens Ekelin (Rentokiller), as the story goes, apparently called out for comrades sharing a love for Disrupt to start a new band, a call to which Linus Jägerskog (Burst - see, that mention up there wasn’t totally random) and Marko Partanen (Rentokiller) quickly replied to, with Mattias Rasmusson (Obstruktion/Blessings/Gust) and Erik Harald (Rentokiller) joining them some time afterwards as well. If you’re into any of the mentioned bands, or just damn great heavy music, it’s time to give Industrial Puke a go right now.
JAAW
Supercluster
(Svart Records)
I know, I know, I’ve gone on quite a bit about JAAW before, but when I had them on the Band Of The Week feature, the album wasn’t out yet and I could only share the first single with you. Now the whole thing is out there already, prowling the world menacingly, and I can’t let another opportunity to mention them go past like this. So yeah, as I mentioned before, JAAW is a “supergroup”, no matter how lame that expression is, formed by Andy Cairns (Therapy?), Jason Stoll (Mugstar, KLÄMP, Sex Swing, Dømes, plus owner of God Unknown Records), Wayne Adams (Death Pedals, Big Lad, Petbrick, Wasted Death) and Adam Betts (Three Trapped Tigers, Goldie, Squarepusher), and unlike most other “supergroups”, they are so much more than what would already be a considerable sum of their parts. At the time, I called them “all of those bands put in a blender with a bucket of cocaine, a couple of Kurt Vonnegut novels and a mashed bit of Justin K. Broadrick’s brain stolen from him in his sleep”, and hey, why not reuse a stupid description like that, especially if it’s nevertheless pretty accurate on top of it? Look, there’s nothing to not like about this - it’s heavy, atmospheric, psychedelic, it’s noise and industrial and noise rock at the same time, it’s a festival of big riffs dripping with feedback and a bad attitude. Just go on and listen to the damn thing, and I’m sure I’ll bring them up again at the end of the year when I do the usual top 50.
Khanate
To Be Cruel
(Sacred Bones)
A few lucky ones knew about the big secret before the announcement caught the world by surprise (remember I cryptically mentioned something in the intro to last month’s column?), and if they’re anything like me, they probably had to hire people to physically restrain them from shouting from the rooftops and posting on every social media platform imaginable that Khanate are fucking back!!!! before the final date of the news embargo. Not only are they back with a new album, but also as a fully functioning band, one that will even play shows and make more new music. The enormity of these news is something we’re still wrapping our heads around, just like the music on ‘To Be Cruel’, which will from here on out serve as a shining example, filed right next to ‘Monotheist’ or ‘A World Lit Only By Fire’ or a couple of others, of how a legendary musical entity can return from the depths of a lengthy hiatus with elegance, assertively, maintaining all their relevance intact, all of its previous power and influence untouched, while at the same time adding true value to their canon and avoiding all nostalgia pitfalls. The more I listen to the three hideously twisted twenty minute nightmares that constitute this record, the more I’m convinced that this is their best album ever, and if you know anything about me, it’s that this isn’t the kind of shit I throw around lightly, and particularly not with this band. As I described them on “surprise day”, they are still “the most horrible-sounding, void-staring music in the world”, even more so now due to the truly intimidating viciousness of it all (more than before, yes), but there’s also more to it. More depth, more nuance, more flow. That, or maybe the noxious fumes exhaled by this damn music are getting to me. In either case, mission fucking accomplished, gentlemen. Carry on.
Nattehimmel
Mourningstar
(Hammerheart Records)
The first words heard on ‘Mourningstar’ are the two final verses of that famous Dylan Thomas poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”, softly sung by James Fogarty, during the short title-track intro. After that, the first proper song starts, ‘Astrologer’, and a massive star-gazing riff instantly kicks in, with the band in full swing around it already, and James himself joins in with some truly soulful singing after only nineteen seconds, no need for overblown theatrics or any other kind of fluff. If, like me, and like most people with a smattering of good taste, you hold the ‘HEart Of The Ages’ / ‘Omnio’ / ‘Strange In Stereo’ trilogy of In The Woods… albums close to your heart as some of most elegantly evocative, uniquely unrepeatable music in any genre, you will instantly be transported to that magical period, and your attention to Nattehimmel will be undivided from then on. Those Dylan Thomas verses end up being very appropriate - as the forces that balance the universe would have it, the second incarnation of In The Woods… hasn’t been exactly brilliant, to put it mildly. Not on the decidedly average comeback album ‘Pure', when the Botteri twins, bassist Cristopher and guitarist Christian, were still in the band, and most definitely not nowadays, when what passes for In The Woods… is a motley collection of people doing terrible records whose only remote connection to the original band is drummer Anders Kobro, bless his heart.
But the Botteri twins persevered. They raged against the dying of that light. They did Strange New Dawn, which was pretty good, and now they’ve finally hit the nail completely on the head with this remarkable Nattehimmel album. The funny thing is, despite their presence, and James’ too, despite the odd (pun not intended, but left as a homage to fallen In The Woods… guitarist Oddvar A:M - R.I.P., dear sir) moment where the ghost of their old band returns in force (half of ‘Realm Of Hades’ is shamelessly In The Woods…), ‘Mourningstar’ is very much its own thing. It’s not trying to be a continuation of anything, a 2023 version of any past glories, and perhaps that was exactly what these people needed. A special word for James, the vocalist that succeeded the unsucceedable Jan Kenneth Transeth in those so-so first years of the In The Woods… comeback - his fantastic performance here is a sort of deserved vindication for having been in that difficult position. Though Mr. Transeth is the kind of once-in-a-generation singer you just can’t replace, the problem with the “new” In The Woods… was very far from being its new vocalist.
So your attention to the album will be undivided, as I mentioned previously, but not necessarily because that initial bit sounds like something else, or even because you might or might not be an In The Woods… fan. It helps if you are, yes, but merely for context. You will pay attention to this because it’s a fantastic collection of songs, nothing more, nothing less. It’s like these guys finally realised the best way to manage that heavy baggage is to allow it to be free, unattached to their inspiration, to only appear if and when it wants to. As a much more black metal-oriented, less meanderingly experimental but nevertheless spacey, expansive and wonderfully inspiring album, this would hold up no matter what names are in the musicians’ pasts. So, a strong challenge surpassed. Glasses raised, gentlemen - let us rage against the dying of the light together from here.
Therapy?
Hard Cold Fire
(Marshall Records)
In a perverse way, I kinda envy those fans who lost track of Therapy? after their gigantic 90s mainstream success - when they realise these guys haven’t really gone anywhere, and have actually gotten better with age, maturity and an evolution outside of the poisoning, toxic world of mainstream music, they will have a mountain of brilliant records to discover. The jagged, uneasy darkness of ‘Crooked Timber’, the experimentalism vs. big rock feel of ‘A Brief Crack Of Light’, the infectious, bouncy-noir catchiness of ‘High Anxiety’, the metallic potency and open-wound angst of ‘Disquiet’, you name it, each of their albums seems to have its own rich personality. ‘Hard Cold Fire’ is yet another one to throw on that glorious pile, a sort of mix between the immediacy of ‘High Anxiety’ (and, if you must, of the famous ‘Troublegum’, yes) and the darker shades of grey of ‘Disquiet’, full of literary references, razor sharp social commentary, and the sort of ecstatic display of poignant sorrow that few other bands are capable of - who else can you imagine making you jump around the room, tears about to burst, wildly singing words like “Nothing seems to make you happy / Nothing seems to bring you joy / No joy / No joy” or “Broken glass above my head / Filthy boot on my chest / Flecked with spit and hostile breath / Holes in the road filled with rain / I'm not / I'm not here / I want / To disappear”? That’s right, no one. Oh, and Mr. Andy Cairns: you’re in two of the five albums of The Devil’s Month of May. Take a bow!