You’ve got a bitter choice to make
About the nightfall after day
The privilege of changing face
For a while I choose to stay
Copenhagen’s Taxidermy tears through tidy labels, drawing deeply from the nervous pulse of late ‘70s and ‘80s post-punk, angular and anxious; the calculated chaos of math-rock and no wave; and the raw resonance of minimalistic post-hardcore and emotional extremes. Their sound is restless, dissonant, and defiant: music that captures modern malaise through surrealism and suffocating tension.
Now the Danish outfit surfaces with a new single, Impending: a fractured fever dream wrapped in strange strings, jagged rhythms, and abrupt mood swings. Spoken words twist suddenly into shouts, whispers warp into wild wails, as carefully constructed structures teeter on the brink of collapse. As the track unfolds, tension lurking beneath atmospheric verses bursts into distorted, explosive outbursts, then swiftly unravels into a throbbing, chaotic pulse, capturing the song’s manic and disorienting spirit.
Lead vocalist Osvald Reinhold describes the song as “a moment of clarity; a detached, fleeting overview of the limited nature of existence, on the brink of being overtaken once more by oblivion and habitual repetition.”
Reinhold delivers each phrase frantic and frayed, taut with tension, exploding and imploding in manic, anxious abandon. His voice sketches stark scenes of dread, self-destruction, and despair; images blurred by anxiety, emotion, and memory’s relentless hauntings. Echoes resound of Swans’ unsettling symphonies, Sonic Youth’s noisy nocturnes, Mission of Burma’s methodical madness, The Birthday Party’s brittle brutality, Television’s taut textures, and Pixies’ fractured fury.
Lyrically, the song seeks sanctuary within a mind scarred by emotional storms. Memories swirl, unsettling and unavoidable; truth torments rather than comforts. Through vulnerability, the voice begs for clarity, connection, and calm, craving a closeness always out of reach. Each line lingers like an unhealed wound, each word an ache laid bare.
Impending serves as a powerful introduction to their forthcoming second EP, Let Go, out 16 May. Listen to Impending below and order the single here.
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