When I think of death-doom, I envision bands like Hanging Garden: beautiful melodies, somber vocals, and an inherent sense of melancholia. Now, imagine taking the music of death-doom and pushing it to the brink of madness, stretching it beyond the accepted boundaries of the genre until something jarring remains, along with a touch of saxophone. That’s the alchemy Backengrillen has achieved on their debut album, Backengrillen, and it’s a doozy.

Before I begin this review, I want this to be on record: in terms of musicianship and creativity, Backengrillen is one of the most intricate records I have encountered in a long time. While it presents an arduous and cacophonic listening experience—there are moments here that can yank you out of its immersion—I savored every second of it.

Now, Backengrillen will not be for everyone. Given that this album was pitched as experimental death-doom (for lack of a better term), everyone has a different concept of what that can entail. Backengrillen certainly doesn’t fit whatever box a listener might envision when thinking about death-doom, and clearly, no one expected it to include a variation of noise rock within the confines of its melodic structure. I have been trying for days to find the words for how I feel about this album in terms of its scope and musicianship. The closest comparison I can think of is a mix between High Castle Teleorkestra’s The Egg That Never Opened and the fresh hell that bands like The Body have been exploring for years. It’s cacophonic death jazz that sounds like it was recorded in one sitting, and it shows: there’s something incredibly destructive about a record and a band that clearly do not give a shit for what you think of their music. If this is supposed to be an extension of what death-doom can be, then it exists in a space that none of us can reach. If this is supposed to be another genre entirely, then they have clearly succeeded in creating something that redefines that space. Whatever they aimed to achieve, Backengrillen has undoubtedly succeeded, and it’s bound to confuse anyone who wants to listen to this album.

However, the irony is that everything about this record sounds like it was recorded on a whim, an afterthought stemming from the euphoria of creating art that is both disturbing and compelling. It’s inherently messy, as if the band decided that anything goes in the creative process, opting to make music that straddles the line between melody and brown noise. Take the track “Dör för långsamt,” for example: you hear a man struggle to play a flute for three minutes after screaming his head off for 10 minutes. Underneath that, a syncopated rhythm arises from a sax on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Then, the other instruments come in, creating something akin to a “normal” song, one with structure and melody that is clearly experimental. After all, you are listening to a band essentially losing themselves to the madness of sound in real time, and it’s beautifully entertaining. However, it’s not always sheer insanity: “Repeater II” makes you want to dance and scream along to the lyrics, its manic energy flowing from its melody; and “Socialism or Barbarism” features a fun bassline only matched by the sax’s free playing. This combination, along with the vocals, gives the music a cathartic feeling, one found only at the end of the spiral. It’s the strangest ride in history, and you want to discover more about it – you want to dissect it and piece it back together, just as nature intended.

Backengrillen is a lot of things: joy, chaos, catharsis, art – and it’s a record worth experiencing at least once. It may sound like something you will want to inflict upon your enemies, but you might find something underneath the cacophony and mania that it offers you. Just be aware that it might change your idea of what genre can and should be, a thread of forbidden (genre) knowledge that is lightning in a bottle.

— Hera

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Backengrillen is available now on Svart Records. For more information on Backengrillen, visit their official Bandcamp page.