Photo: Joe Dilworth
From the tenebrous landscape of Berlin, Maggot Heart’s wild roar awakens a primal urge with their latest work HUNGER, an album that stands as a testament to raw desire. Two record labels, Berlin’s Rapid Eye Records and Finland’s Svart Records, have teamed up to release Maggot Heart’s third studio release, promising a visceral experience.
Maggot Heart is a band that blends raw emotions into a dark musical cohesion. Their members include Linnéa Olsson on guitar and vocals, Olivia Airey on bass, and Uno Bruniusson on drums. Their music defies categorization and transcends boundaries.
Swedish-born Olsson, known for her work with bands like The Oath and Beastmilk/Grave Pleasures, founded Maggot Heart in 2016 with a clear and singular vision. The project quickly sent shockwaves through the underground music scene with the release of the City Girls EP, creating a seismic impact that still resonates. The influence of Maggot Heart continued to shake the earth with 2017’s Dusk To Dusk and 2020’s Mercy Machine. Far from content to simply follow the beaten path, the band has made it clear that they are here to excavate deeper and explore the deeper, more resonant layers of rock music.
“This Shadow” pierces through the conventional with abrasive pop hooks and Bowie-esque Jazz brass, reflecting Maggot Heart’s masterful blend of simplicity and nuanced musical acumen. In Airey’s bass and Bruniusson’s drumming (his enigmatic pulse once part of In Solitude), there lies the very essence and backbone of Maggot Heart.
Watch the video for “This Shadow,” directed by Tekla Valy, below:
With HUNGER, Maggot Heart has meticulously woven an exploration of human dichotomies, with the rhythmic backbone as strong and imposing as Berlin’s brutalist architecture, where the album was recorded, and expressive melodies that flutter and twine like ivy on a ruin. Crafted under the discerning watch of American producer Ben Greenberg, HUNGER is a pivotal moment, a redirection and redefinition for the band.
With this offering, echoes of past innovators ring through every track. The wild poetic zeal of Patti Smith, Sonic Youth’s embrace of dissonant beauty, The Stooges’ raw primal urgency, Killing Joke’s mystique, and Voivod’s disorienting futuristic pandemonium all converge.
Within the wider narrative of Maggot Heart, HUNGER marks the third act in a conceptually rich trilogy, following Dusk to Dusk and Mercy Machine. If Dusk to Dusk was a contemplative journey through the mind’s intricate labyrinth and Mercy Machine was a corporeal dance with the body’s stark realities, then HUNGER is the spirit, ephemeral and transcendent. It is a spectral whisper, ungraspable yet profoundly present. Together, these three works are more than a sequence of albums; they are a multidimensional experience, a nuanced reflection on the mutable and interwoven facets of what it means to be human.
The band’s path—sharing stages in the US with psychedelic warlords Earthless, brushing against the fierce flame of High on Fire, locking arms with the unbridled anarchy of Amyl & The Sniffers in the EU, and laying claim to the hallowed grounds of the Roadburn Festival—is not one of passive travel but unrepentant, hungry wandering, saliva dripping with the lust for the next audio battleground. With HUNGER, Maggot Heart has laid out a feast for the ears, and all are welcome at the table.
Pre-order here through Rapid Eye Records. Maggot Heart will be touring this autumn in support of the record:
MAGGOT HEART TOUR DATES
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