The Skull Defekts
The Skull Defekts

One of the most solid and recognizable entities in the ever-flourishing and rich experimental scene of Scandinavia in recent years is closing after having likely reached the highest peak of its musical production with this album. In a statement released last autumn, Joachim Nordwall announced that the upcoming eponymous album by The Skull Defekts will be the last in the history of the band from Gothenburg (Sweden). The decision was made with difficulty by Nordwall himself. Jean-Louis Hunta and Daniel Higgs were increasingly less involved in the project, making it even complicated to organize the different recording sessions, so the decision was practically made at the start of the work on this album, the development of which was evidently particularly troubled, but not less fruitful for that reason. Nordwall described the album as more composed than its predecessors but at the same time spoke of moments within it that were completely improvised: I think that this particular characteristic combined with the "decisive" moment finally balanced the two things, leading to the creation of a unique album.

"The Skull Defekts" will be released next February 23 on Thrill Jockey Records, the same label that accompanied them on the successful journey started with the boom of "Peer Amid" in 2011 and that has brought them to establish themselves throughout Europe and the USA. During the recording sessions, the trio was joined by the new entry Mariam Wallentin, whose contribution to the album was particularly relevant: her vocal performances in "All Thoughts Thought" and particularly in "Powdered Faces" and "Slow Storm," the central track of the album, are absolutely hypnotic and full of energy, giving the band's sound an additional solution.

The album is indeed somewhat "monolithic": the band's sound appears as solid as a true wall of sound with a pulsating heart of post-industrial mechanics. Hallucinations in the style of Suicide or Peter Murphy's Bauhaus are accompanied from the very first track by experiments in the style of Einsturzende Neubauten, giving the sound a rock blues dimension and at the same time acidic like a novel by William Burroughs or the nightmares of J. G. Ballard. The repetitiveness of the sounds, noise suggestions, and the post-punk garage attitude remain, however, the Skull Defekts' trademark and also of this ideal soundtrack of an end through seppuku, the ritual completion of an artistic journey. The last message of The Skull Defekts before self-destruction.