Årabrot return from death's door with a striking documentary

Features
By ( Metal Hammer ) published

Årabrot's death-defying Cocks And Crosses documentary gets its first UK showing at the 100 Club on Wednesday night

Årarbrot promo pic, by Olle Lundin
(Image credit: Olle Lundin)

Named after a garbage dump situated in their hometown of Haugesund, Norway, Årabrot initially sounded like a pox-ridden prophet relaying visions of mankind’s imminent destruction from atop said garbage dump, and their scabrous missives predated the current post-punk wave by a good few years while still sounding utterly unique. Their path to (relative) sonic accessibility since has never diluted a surrealistic vision that’s combined existentialism, scatology, mysticism and all manner of psychic detritus, but the band’s momentum was almost derailed in 2014 when frontman Kjetil Nernes was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer.

That diagnosis, Kjetil’s fight and subsequent recovery and the effect the whole process had on him and Årabot is the subject of a striking documentary, Cocks & Crosses: The Music That Would Not Die, that’s getting its first UK showing at The 100 Club in London on November 8 as part of the Doc’n Roll Film Festival, followed up the same evening by an Årabrot live show.

Cocks & Crosses is the remarkable tale of a remarkable band, and if you need any more convincing to get yourself down to the 100 Club tomorrow night check the trailer below!

Get tickets for Cocks & Crosses here!

Jonathan Selzer
Jonathan Selzer

Having freelanced regularly for the Melody Maker and Kerrang!, and edited the extreme metal monthly, Terrorizer, for seven years, Jonathan is now the overseer of all the album and live reviews in Metal Hammer. Bemoans his obsolete superpower of being invisible to Routemaster bus conductors, finds men without sideburns slightly circumspect, and thinks songs that aren’t about Satan, swords or witches are a bit silly.