Ladies and Gentlemen, if you’ve not previously heard of Demon Head, let me introduce you to some fine, albeit quite quirky, rock! Through Holes Shine the Stars was released on 20th September via Svart Records, it’s the fifth full-length effort from the band, who actually celebrated the tenth anniversary of their formation last year, hailing from København, Denmark. It is undoubtedly another milestone on their tireless – and very own – path through the wilderness. It is a deeper, darker well of tones and melodies than before, while being significantly more extroverted than their last releases.
Demon Head is one of those bands that manage to sound not quite like anyone else. Though hesitant to compromise the description of the music they perform through generalizing terms of genre, they’ve coined the term ‘Diabolic Rock’ as an appropriate presentation. Fans of everything from heavy metal and classic rock and punk to ambient, acoustic and alternative music will discover appealling aspects in the seemingly effortless, strangely catchy, and unique, quirky style that Demon Head have become known for.
No, your eyes are not deceiving you, they like a bit of fuzz!
Bassist Mikkel reflects that this new material has been built “upon the pillars” of their previous first four records. The eight songs were written collectively during several concentrated sessions from 2019–2022 and recorded entirely by the band themselves from October 2022 to March 2023 in their own studios in Copenhagen and the west coast of Ireland. Guitarist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist producer, Birk Gjerlufsen Nielsen suggests that this long, protracted process had allowed the band to reach a balance between structural precision and artistic expansion, melodic simplicity, and compositional depth. In continuation of previous collaborations, Demon Head have mixed the album with the legendary engineer and producer Flemming Rasmussen (Metallica, Morbid Angel, Ensiferum, etc.) in Sweet Silence Studios. Vocalist and recording engineer Marcus Ferreira Larsen remarks: “Like any true master, Flemming has created a direct and hard-hitting, transparent mix that does nothing but enhance what is already communicated in the compositions and the performance. He helped us place everything in the landscape that we’ve carved through recording everything ourselves once again.”
The Chalice opens the opus, it starts with a discordant anthem that feels like a weird blend of all-sorts, notably Europe mixed with Scott Walker! Add to that an almost operatic chorale crescendo towards the end and you realise this is not yer average rock album. Draw Down The Sky continues this sort of slightly off-key tonality in the guitars, reinforced by what becomes clear as the band’s trademark semi-harmonic vocals. Bu semi-harmonic I mean the fading minor tones, a sort of “pleading” note in lead vocalist and lyricist Marcus Ferreira’s projection. It does take a little getting used to I know, but it’s worth it.
Our Winged Mother creates a sort of prism of despair, it’s a dark track lamenting a sense of despair “as void as the night sky through which the stars shine through” although tinged with interludes of faint hope, urgency rubbing shoulders with bursts of surreal and playful absurdity. Heavy stuff, eh? The track then gets quite proggy in the middle section, a nicely paced solo slowing things down further, adding a calming effect as a lead-in to an almost Gregorian finale, complete with a hard-to-define woodwind instrument?
At a little short of eight minutes, Every Flatworm is the longest track on the album, moving effortlessly through heavy riffs, more woodwind arrangements and tape-manipulated percussion arrangements – a little bit of Prog, an occasional hint of opera, a touch of electro – what next I hear you ask? Imagine Metallica doing Opera, and you wouldn’t be too far out…..and yet the band always maintains a tuneful, melodic note to their doom-ridden despair – not exactly cheerful but always somehow chirpy? This longer number has lots of multi-layered slabs of riffery blended with synths, the trademark earnest vocals repeatedly asking “why are we here”…. Wildfire Main continues in the same vein, I have to say there is bit of a lack of variety creeping in. Deeper Blades largely disperses that, while still employing the trademark almost Siouxsie-an descending tones in the vocals – I guess it goes with the Diabolic / Occult rock vibe.
On the lyrical front, Through Holes Shine the Stars is a leap forward, as the lyrics are both more immediate and more poetic, reading like short stories but wrought out with a nerve that leaves no doubt as to the meanings these carry for the singers and the band. It seems that they could all take place tomorrow or in the distant future or past. The threads that emerge from the stories weave through moments of explosion, moments of grief, existential despair, and faint but fleeting hope.
The album is completed with the two lengthy cuts Frost and This Vessel Is Willing. Frost is a celebration of the rhythmic music that’s inspired the band through the years, culminating in an epic double guitar solo. This Vessel Is Willing is sort of an epilogue after that, part improvisation, part rearranged collage work of a blown-out and late-night session the band had with Adam CCsquele from Slaegt (and a thousand other projects) on drums. A friend of theirs, Jim Slade, joined on bass clarinet and Birk’s brother Thor added some detuned guitar complete with a bow. Add the woodwind arrangements in Ireland and you have a bit of a beast!
The band’s vocals are a bit of an acquired taste, and a little more variety wouldn’t go amiss – but the musical exploration that Demon Head have practiced since the very beginning is certainly far from over, and suggests that a new era has already begun!
