Död Mark
Drabbad av sjukdom

THE REVIEW

The mood is gray, the ubiquitous fog is white. When I go out, the temperature is below zero and I order a Negroni on the rocks. When I'm at home, I listen to something to prevent my thoughts from turning black. Punk played by angry people would do, but I also crave something modern, something played by some young person who spends time on the internet reading things. So no classics, better to search online. Among my old bookmarks, I find this: it’s just what I need, angry, noisy, punk hardcore voice and a very arrogant techno hardcore base. The internet tells me these Död Mark recently released a digital album, so I go searching for it.

Here it is, Drabbad av sjukdom. It starts with fifty seconds of basic punk and screams in Swedish. Good. Then the album continues: I was hoping for a twenty-minute blast of digital hardcore, but no, at times it's more like a sad post-punk with fat bass, at times it's depressive hip-hop with a three-chord-and-go guitar and a cocky base. As the reference genre oscillates, so does the voice, which shifts from an angry scream to a sort of apathetic, lazy, essential rap. And incomprehensible because it's in Swedish.

Wait, I know this voice. I search on the internet.

It’s him. There's Yung Lean on vocals. The ＳＡＤＢ☺Ｙ, the grand vizier of European meme-rap. The one who boasts a horde of disciples among the kids who make memes of themselves rapping on the internet. Needless to say, producing is Yung Gud.

And they're not bad at all. They tried, the ideas are not yet clear, the direction is not yet precise, but the premises are good. These are people who became "famous" for their vaporwave videos, the mere fact that they are faced with a decision is something. A statistical sample decreed 50% that this album is trash after one listen; the other 50% said that "Yes, you can feel there's a punk attitude. Sure, the real names are in another universe, they don't even play the same stuff. But 2016 is also in another universe compared to 1977. But if punk were born today, it would sound something like this".

I don’t know if it’s true, but maybe my spirit guide knows; the clown from the 1921 Campari advertisement I have hanging above my bed. In these cases, he usually tells me "the truth lies in the middle" but maybe this time, even he doesn't know the answer. In the end, the Campari clown speaks, and once again, the Campari clown is right:

"It’s free, let’s just accept it".