The gloom-laden music scene of Portland has given rise to many unique artists over the years. One striking presence in this scene is Princess Ugly, a project led by J. Christopher-Rome, who delivers his sharp-edged poetry in a voice that oscillates between sardonic and sinister. Meanwhile, Christopher Moncrieffe creates melodies that balance on the edge of the spectral and the spellbinding. Their six-song EP, *Bring The Axes*, is an intriguing blend of macabre cinematic and gothic influences, emerging like a storm cloud poised to break the sky.
Throughout the EP, Christopher-Rome’s vocals creep like a prowler through the fog, his delivery cutting against guitars that shimmer and distort, dragging their airy lilt into the brooding depths. Musically, Princess Ugly bears the unmistakable fingerprints of it’s post-punk, goth, and darkwave influences, but there’s something uniquely unsettling in their alchemy. With Bring The Axes, they summon a sound that stalks the borders of beauty and menace, where macabre meets melody in an uneasy truce.
An anthem for uncertain times, the opening track, Obscure Procession, mirrors the inner battles and external conflicts that shadow our collective journey. It embodies a steadfast push against negativity, forging ahead into the unknown with reluctant hope—a gaze cast upon the symbolic wishing well. The arrangement itself feels hesitant, its measured pace underscoring the weight of reluctance. Yet, this slowness erupts in bursts of raw emotion, with diminished crescendos carrying the anger and grief of loss. The stabbing guitars, jagged and insistent, serve as a relentless reminder of privation, their echoes an internal scream against inevitability, treading the line between mourning and perseverance.
Caught in the cracks of liminal existence, The Death Trap captures the fragmented nature of living disconnected from the surrounding world. Textural washes unfold in dynamic layers, only to collapse into yawning voids of stillness—silent moments that demand contemplation. It is a cold, ethereal beauty, stripped to its essence, evoking the sensation of passing time as an observer rather than a participant. The sparse yet haunting arrangement becomes a reflection of the postmodern condition: fragmented, transient, and longing. Its culmination—a catastrophic trainwreck of sound—mirrors the frustration of yearning for depth while trapped in the unyielding cycle of detachment and waiting.
“The odd and unconventional main motif came first,” says the band of Bring The Axes. “Spiraling thoughts swing between despair and hope. To be ‘inside of the wolf,’ trapped within a fierce, predatory, aspect of oneself. Then, the debacle of recklessly stabbed accenting chords in the chorus.” The track evokes Daniel Ash’s hissing vocal delivery, paired with instrumentation that nods to Depeche Mode’s darker, industrial-tinged experiments. It’s a gripping blend of restless energy and introspective unease, moving seamlessly between jagged edges and moments of quiet contemplation.
A clamor of chaos unfolds in Invading The Unhinged Mind, where bass lines rumble with reckless resolve, melodies misbehave, and harmonies dart like startled birds. The yearning for simplicity tangles with difficulty, as though clarity were a prize locked behind bolted doors. A woozy halftime shift staggers between the expected and the unforeseen, mirroring the uneasy truce between hope and hesitation. Guitars swell wide and distorted, roaring in the chorus with a desperate call for control. Beneath it all simmers a tension—memories clawing at the edges, unwelcome yet unshakable.
In Dream Structure, the borders blur. Where waking ends and dreaming begins, fear festers in the soft light. Bass lines loop like whispers in a cavern, circling through cycles of escape and return. Bells chime faintly, slipping into the night like fleeting thoughts, their sound unraveling into something more sinister. Here, the mind becomes a hall of flickering images—half-remembered, half-forgotten, fully unrelenting.
Unnatural Course of Things marches steadily, its rhythms both numbing and insistent. Harmonies wobble, unsure, before lurching into anger, guitars striking like hammer blows against the silence. Repetition becomes ritual, a carousel of pain spinning without cease. Yet within the dissonance lies a hard-won promise—a vow to rise, to repair, to wrest strength from suffering’s grip.
Listen to Bring The Axes below and order the EP here.
Bring the Axes took shape in the clamor and clang of Portland’s Drop Dead Ugly Recording Studio, with Princess Ugly steering the storm alongside MIDICANCER for the mix and Kevin Nettleingham sharpening its edge in Vancouver, Washington. It brims with raw intensity, a howl honed and heavy. Alongside its piercing counterpart—a stripped-down instrumental version—the EP strikes on streaming platforms like a blade to flint.
This December, Princess Ugly takes their place among a fierce assembly of 132 bands on the sprawling Spleen+ (Alfa Matrix) compilation. Seven discs deep, this global gathering threads post-punk’s splintered offshoots into a tempest of unrelenting energy, rekindling the fire of its forebears. The album is set for release December 6, 2024, under Alfa Matrix. You can pre-order it here.
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