Surfing on the wave of acclaim that followed their last album, the Steve Albini-produced Solar Anus, Norway’s premier noise rock pugilists have dragged their mutant sound ever further into a thoroughly disorientating fug of malevolence and perverse non-sequiturs on this self-titled splurge of sinister deeds.
Plagued by thoughts of good and evil, gods and the godless, as well as a sonic palate that uses a basic brew of early Swans, Unsane, Jesus Lizard and The Birthday Party as an eccentric springboard to somewhere else entirely, Årabrot generate an atmosphere of unholy confusion that is all their own, the grinding bass riffs, angular guitar squawks and thudding tom flourishes underpinning what frequently feels like a running commentary on the band’s own internal, personal battles with mortality and destruction.
Despite all this, songs like Throwing Rocks At The Devil and The Horns Of The Devil Grow are weirdly and persistently catchy, as if by sucking listeners into their world of abstruse wickedness, Årabrot will add fuel to their own creative fires and emerge stronger and more dangerous than ever. Either way, this is without a doubt a grotesque triumph.
