[Review] Daufødt - ‘Glitter’LP.
All that glitters may be gold, but it’s also wildly brutish, experimental and fun.
Norway’s an interesting one. Typically, fans of heavy and alternative music are wont to cast their minds to the frostbitten, sad-panda corpse-painted ethos of hyper-blasting black metal, or perhaps the hurdy-gurdy overtures of folk which permeate the overarching tropes.
Much like nearby neighbours in Sweden and Finland, however, Norwegians have a stellar track record of producing a thriving and competent punk, hardcore and experimental rock scene, one bathed in the huge influence of electronic music in Europe as a whole.
With Daufødt’s latest effort Shimmer, these Northern up-and-comers have managed to craft an album that melds all the aforementioned genres into an aesthetic that almost shouldn’t work - on paper, at least.
But it does.
Boy howdy, it does.
Released back in September of 2024 and sporting a frontwoman in Annika Holme whom is also a designer by trade, there’s a clear focus on mingling nouveau-chic mirth and unbridled frustration at the overall state of things. The band have previously been quoted as intending ‘Glitter’ (both the title track and album as a whole) conceptually less as glamorous and pretty, and more shiny, sticky, waxy. The track indeed relays this sentiment effectively, with the vocalists’ melodic croons and punky drawls layered atop the multi-instrumentation of each member. It sticks, indeed. It’s hooky as hell. But it’s also grimy.
The fact that everyone from Mads Antonsen Gerzić (drums), Eskild Myrvol (bass) and Eirik Albrethsen Reithaug (guitar) are credited in the liner notes as having additional synthesiser and mixer duties is unsurprising; the title track is both awash in pummelling rock fury and warm but discordant keys. There’s a sense of a diluted disco fever here; a frustrated dance ethos amongst the palpable irritation at the state of, well, everything.
Credit: Artist Facebook Page.
Drawing both the lyrical themes and run-time down to the sharpest point, the experimental yet traditional stylings of ‘Glitter’ are replaced by 90 simple seconds of cathartic psychological fury in ‘Stemmene i hodet’ (which translates to ‘The Voices in My Head'). Capturing the sense of inattentiveness and overwhelm we often feel when disrupted by intrusive thoughts, it’s a purposefully brief and raw statement. Full hardcore-punk fury to kick us off.
Lashing outward, Annika’s stylistic shift between humble croons, hardcore-influenced barks and spoken word matches the bands’ underlying controlled cacophony that continues through to the absolutely filth-drenched distortion of ‘Toxic’. Nope, it’s not a Britney Spears cover. But on that note, it is a seething criticism of the everyday narcissism engendered by our insular reliance on self-aggrandising via smartphones, social media and the like. Much like the other tracks, there’s a creatively jagged but tight employment of riffage in guitar and bass that evoke The Jesus Lizard, backed by rollicking drums that switch from d-beat to Acca Dacca tempo whenever they damn well please.
Linguistic barriers did not stop me from reading up on the lyrics (i.e. probably-poorly translated via Google), but the native Norwegian tongue gives everything a unique Kvelertak flavour. It just works in a way English can’t.
Dunno how to explain that, you’ve just got to listen to grasp it.
‘Jeg vil bare hjem’ (‘I Just Want To Go Home’) eases off the gas only literally for a second, to great effect. A steady and melodic consistency permeates this track, as do more subtle electronic influences. This one is the most radio-ready of the whole album, perhaps, and it shows the bands’ capacity to be as melodic or chaotic as they damn well please.
One could almost slot this track on a Hellacopters album, were it not for the pained and expressive delivery of the vocals which imply a deeper, subtle frustration. It’s the frustrated shuffle to the bar at 3am because no one wants to leave yet, and you’re just on that tipping-point of resentment about the wait for the taxi rank you know’s not coming just yet.
And if the prior track is the mildly-miffed sentiment of the night starting to drag on a bit too long? Buckle up, because we’re about to take a completely different emotional turn yet again. ‘Over Ende’, using my lame and superficial comparison, is more an awkward walk home in the dark. It’s having everyone leave and you’re suddenly in the bar/venue forced with the prospect of unfamiliar routes back to the hotel.
There’s a sense of brooding sulk, sure - the haunting and lilting guitar work over the comparatively stoic rhythm section ensures that. No, there’s just something off about the track. It’s charged in a musical sense, but there’s a clear objective of portraying flecks of confetti in a pool of tepid mud.
Funnily enough, and not because I don’t like the vocals (love them, in fact!), pseudo-interlude and 9-minute noise-wall ‘False Vekkeser may be one of my favourite moments of the album. It feels like a deliberate piece of psychological respite. Forgoing vocals for a while, this brief but interesting intermission is a dense but playful potluck of the organic and digital. It’s experimental, but it’s not prog. There’s curious moments, but it feels more impulsive than chin-stroking.
You could’ve plucked this straight out of the back-end of a Mars Volta or Hawkwind album, which is refreshing for a band otherwise steeped in punk rock. Like Refused, it’s evidence Scandinavians know how to infuse electronica with street-wise genres. Including more caustic electronic noise, it’s one that’ll potentially grate the most on listeners looking for more of that familiar rock archetype. There is a lot of discordant electronica throughout this track. Kind of like a low-grade Merzbow. I loved it, honestly, and it was interesting to see the band playing with various instrumental dials once more to showcase equal comfort in hookiness and outright chaos across the album.
‘Verre’ blow the cobwebs right away from all that, though, kicking off with pained feedback into sheer knuckle-dragging. With one of the more straightforward and aggressive structures of the whole album, it’s a requisite late-album palate cleanser that sees the group launch into pure mid-late 80’s hardcore punk territory. There’s more of that tainted-disco vibrancy that permeates the track, too, employing a really well-done blend of misanthropy and rock-steady bombast that is fun but uneasy. In a completely rad way. ‘Sote Hunder’ sees the band replace their lithium-ion batteries used in the prior track with, I don’t know… hydrogen fuel cells? Antimatter? Giving a little breathing space with widdly and playful synth, the entirety of the track is otherwise couched in a similar punk fury underneath all the warbling madness. Goddamn man, I love this band already.
Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m an auDHD speed-demon and once-provoked need my stimming, but I found ‘Skjelvet’ to be one of the weaker tracks of the album. It’s skilful, sure, and demonstrative of how wide a palette a band can truly paint across the framework of punk, hard rock and hardcore. There’s a lot of interesting motifs in both the intstrumental and vocal/lyrical delivery, but perhaps I was just too jazzed-up at this stage to appreciate a marked pushback on the prior track’s tempo. Not a bad song though. Not by far.
As for the next track? Do me a favour - go listen to some Boris. If you don’t like that, you can easily skip ‘Myraiden’. I was a dumbarse in my early 20’s and too proud to wear earplugs to gigs (custom-molds are the way to go, baby!) and the feedback-drenched wash of this brief instrumental was honestly expertly-placed as a palate cleanser for the title-track ahead - but 90-yo Old Man In His Mid-Thirties over here was hanging on for dear life in fear of his tinnitus. Nevertheless, like the Japanese noise-rock band quoted, there’s a sense the track is employed as a deliberate statement - ‘nope. Stuff the glitz and glamour, we’re just as happy to bath in sheer feedback and noise’.
‘Klokka’ (‘Clock’) on the other hand, is deliberate sarcasm by way of title. Burying the synthetic elements back to their more ambient range, this track instead brings out all manner of time-signature oddities and tempo shifts. Not in a frenzied mathcore way, but just enough to invoke both discomfort enmeshed in some genuinely pained vocal delivery. As a lover of noise-rock and math-metal alike, I really appreciate the outright skronky ( shhhhh - it’s on Wiktionary, therefore it’s official) and spindly guitar-work here. Capitulating on this energy, the whole band throw their hands up in unison and really send it for the closing track, railing away with shtick-addled punk riffage and solo’s alike.
Overall, I feel this album perfectly captures the frustrated millenial/Zoomer sentiments of just trying to have some measure of gun, glitz and chic amongst the late-capitalist apocalypse, whilst also pragmatically embracing frustration and psychological overwhelm instead of reverting to toxic positivity.
It’s catchy, hooky and certainly influenced by pop, but it’s also awkward, jagged, uncompromising and cathartic as hell.
I truly hope that:
1. This band comes to Australia so I selfishly get the chance to see how this plays out onstage (PLEASE?!), but more importantly;
2. The band continue on with what genuinely is a unique take on both punk, hardcore, noise-rock, hard rock and electronica.
And watch out, indie hipsters. Methinks there’ll be a lot of crust-punk apes like myself alongside you in the pit. I’ll put on deoderant beforehand, but I’m not apologising if one of us knocks your precious Pabsts out of hand in the pit. ‘Cause this may be glitzy and experimental stuff, but it is VERY pit-ready.
An easy qualifier for my punk or hardcore AOTY for 2024, if it were simply any of those things in isolation or indeed together.
Make me another boilermaker - I’m spinning this one again.
LINK TO TITLE TRACK ‘GLITTER':
INNER-STRENGTH CHECK: