WE INTERRUPT YOUR USUAL FLOW WITH THE SOUR RISKS OF A CEMETERY TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

(We are delighted that Vizzah Harri (South Africa born and Vietnam resident) has returned to us after some time away, and has brought with him a typically distinctive review of Sour Risk, a new album released in September by Cemetery Trip, preceded by typically distinctive reviews of all the Cemetery Trip releases that have preceded it.)

There are times when we just want more of the same, stuff of old that we grew up with or last year’s best but perhaps by now worn out overplayed. We are all creatures of habit and we can all fall for the trap of thinking deviating from course would be less fruitful than staying it. In metal lore there are the supposed big shifts of note when bands take an avant-garde or post-ish turn, perhaps they stopped growling or even using riffs for that matter! Gasp, the horror.

There was a time that I was appalled by the idea of change.

There was a time that I wished Fluisteraars never deviated from their sound on Dromers. Oh wait, I’m doing that thing again cos I still can’t wrap my head around that they’re not making riffs anymore. Uhm, scrap that, yes they fuckin do. There was a time that death metal screams and howls were something I would speak about in the same tones as I hear people that have not acquired the taste for it yet in my present. Musical innovation and opening oneself up towards more textures, planes and spheres of existence for sounds and their absences are ways to forge forward into understanding more of what‘s around us. What depths of experience there can be.

With the correct vision and pairing, a continuous loop of railway travel can have emotional effect, the science behind it less so in the input of the individual recording it but in the construction of train, railway and recording device, weather, time, space. This isn’t an album slapped together with ambient sound though. Cemetery Trip’s new offering is a record that is not afraid to show that art can be vulnerable and aware of its insecurities and faults. I had a year. Took a shit-ton of self-reflection to get through a lot of it and, it probably ain’t everyone’s go to, but it is fitting that someone labeling themselves as anti-psychiatrick funeral punk shakes me out of my stupor a little bit.

This is not your usual black metal fare. It is not your usual anything.

Sour Risk plays like a trip down memory lane but it was written as a one-off collab by China Mieville, Irvine Welsh and Peter Straub. The carnival came to town advertising a fun time but the tickets were all dipped in liquid sceletium (aka kanna) engineered by extraterrestrial entities with motivations unknowable.

Alien MKUltra would not just be a bending of the mind, it would probably break before it enlightens. This record is somewhat a story of what could have happened had such a schism of reality taken place. Kinda like a soundtrack for every time someone mentions that our current reality took a turn towards the Twilight Zone or that we’re in a surrealist or absurdist alternate reality post Y2K.

I came into this album going through the previous releases and if there were trips to be had in the graveyard afore, this time round things have gone a bit awry, the trip went sour, them risks we kept hearing about tuning in and dropping out became real. The carousel is on fire but the flesh melting off charring bones deters not the riders.

Not enough has been said about their previous work, so we’re taking a slight diversion to catch up via a short recap clip montage of “Previously experienced in the catacombs…” There’s so much distinctive strange nastiness to explore in their backlog that they will either be your next favorite niche black metal act, or you’ve already stopped reading.

Going back to 2021, one might look at something labeled a demo and think that it is less refined, doesn’t have vision and lacks proper songwriting. This demo is nothing to scoff at, and once the melodica kicks in on “Rust Pool” and “Hollow Skull”, you might find yourself wondering if that were ever possible on a metal album. Slated as raw blackened sludge punk, it is innovative and provoking, no fat or filler, just a maze of flesh and a really solid offering as a demo.

Terminal Euphoria unleashed even more of the ingredients of this solo artist’s toolkit, with rock sensibilities, punk seances and a use of electronic keys to give it that goth effect glaze. It’s a really fun record to get into if you were looking for something off the beaten path, with the funereal dirge of “Puzzle Box” and hidden gems like the solo in “Haunted Cell.”

The whimsical and then outright weird tones of “Wretched Shell” sounds like fantasy videogame music for the forlorn, however hooks hide in the wings ready to pounce. “Necroharmonic Despondency” is a great name for a black metal track, though it doesn’t start out like one, eventually morphing into something from a Transylvanian bard stuck in Persia. It closes with funeral doom’s bastard child with postpunk begot in a moldy dungeon.

Rot Warp was truly such a fine offering as far as innovation in aesthetic, feel, theme, unpredictability. While the punk got the body moving, the synths added gloom, mood and melancholy and set the tone. T’s vocals haven’t always been drowned out, reverbed and echoed; but the raw feel adds so much atmosphere if done right. With a title track that took steam train cyberpunk into dreamy territory with a melodic solo which is flute-like and ethereal.

“Futureshock Meltdown” had that old cassette, drawn-out draggy decayed sound. And it still works so goddamn well. It goes insanely fast in parts and the drums sound like they’re done on plastic tubs for the fastest part, like they’re busking the whole thing outdoors at times. The electronics are almost alien vocal renditions, very X-files-y.

And yet through comes the punky bass and then fades into oblivion. Definitely leaving the listener wanting more. A lot of Cemetery Trip’s work is synth-heavy, not just spice but as a leading character in this ancient machine-ghosted play, it really works. Never overstaying.

“Nightmare Etiquette” flips hard into the decayed soundscape of the entropic nature of creation and recording. Like an essay on hubris. If horror sci-fi had a sound, this would be close.

Cave Beast did get some coverage here. Their use of clocks, synths and electronics mashed and warped as if soaked in ayahuasca can be misleading because on Cave Beast they went straight for the throat with “Self-Destroyer.” “Black Sunset” is a track I return to often for its perfect blend of atmosphere, driving force and aura of despair, and goddamn that recurring bass riff is just so good.

“State Lines” is one of the most refreshing breaks from convention, a palette cleanser of note, before the listener is perhaps to the uninitiated’s ear rudely reminded that this is a metal album. It shouldn’t work on paper, cos other than the drums and vox, the track is nearly acoustic post-punk. Perhaps I still live under a rock but I don’t think anyone else is doing anything exactly like that. Using gang vocals with bass supremacy, a stadium punk rock guitar chorus, and then back to bass reverbed to death on “Earth Wormed” into my favorite song up to the new album, “Floating Dagger.”

It’s time to hop in the hearse for a night time cruise, it’s time to go dig up some crypts to rejoin the un-alived. It is time to reanimate and for a trip to the boneyard.

They did a one-two punch before the album release with the singles of “Mutant Moon” and “Drone Puke.” Cemetery Trip didn’t choose “Mutant Moon” as their single to trump everyone else making weird-adjacent black metal, it’s been planned as the single for quite some time.

For their previous album, Cave Beast, there were no lyrics, kicking off their 2025 campaign with 2 quatrains each with a second paeonic line, even though the second instance of “morbid mirror” not traditionally having an elongated syllable, it does get performed as such.

Opening with a vaporwave-dipped synth bath, accentuated by mid-paced glory and choral backing. The second half of the song cuts back on the guits at first with bass coming to the fore and with more focus on the vox. The keys steal the show as the solo sprouting from it building from the opening motif bleeds out in a backyard.

“Drone Puke” is the ‘b-side’ and if you’ve never had a party in a graveyard, or want to get an idea of what one might sound like, it’s this. “Drone Puke” has a familiar as fuck bass line in the chorus and its anthemic keys are not going to prepare you for the disconcerting overload in synth-core maximalism in “Cyberpunk’s Dead You’re Next,” which follows it on the full length, and the closest you’ll get to maybe grinding on the edge of punk. Ranging from railing against how our consciousness and experience of reality can be – and perhaps is – engineered by use of the screens many of us are stuck to every day.

If anyone forgot what Cemetery Trip sounded like, “Drone Puke” drops you straight back into the bass up front vox in the back, synths-garnished driving force that only the best visit to the mausoleum is gonna give ya. T hasn’t lost any of their vitalism and ear for a good breakdown.

T is from Nottingham, New Hampshire. If you look it up on a map on elgoog, other than the state having ‘shire’ as a suffix, you might spot a York and a Portsmouth and be momentarily confused in thinking that this is where Robin Hood is from. There are a lot of forests and it is even north of London by 8 minutes and 49 seconds latitudinally. The one in Ontario. The double single of “Mutant Moon” and “Drone Puke” clocks in at just over six and a half minutes which translates into about 7 miles, or 11-ish kilometers.  And because I am insane, I looked for a cemetery that far north of Nottingham (latitude, not as the crow flies) and found Pinegrove cemetery. There are two, this one is NE of not-Robin-Hood’s-hood and looks like a perfect place for an outdoor show, just sayin.

I went down wormholes while assembling a piece of nightmare fuel, commentary down a thread from a tapestry that does not exist outside of pareidolia and apophenia, or, neurosis. As in, if the pattern-seeking becomes undiscernible from psychosis and of actual patterns, is it the former or the latter? If the risks have soured to the point where deconstruction has occurred of even one’s antecedents in a for-mal-de-Hyde-ian jackal yelp of consecration, one needs to perhaps tone down on self-medication. Haha

After the majestic opening, “At Court On Acid” drops us straight back at the cemetery gates. Way more raw this time round. Sour Risk is what you get when a person has a great affinity for melding sounds and T is a mixologist of the highest order. He’s a fuckin mage that brewed up a meditative sonic tonic, a medicine for the mind.

If you enjoyed Cave Beast or the other albums in their discography, then you’ll feel you’re in perhaps the same body of water, but this ain’t the same oceanic trench. There are some currents swishing around sun-tainted and weather-worn detritus of old, so there’s water in it too, but like its predecessors and seawater alike, it certainly isn’t potable. You can drink the water out of a fresh corpse if dystopic desperation gave you the urge, don’t quote me on that kids, results may vary. Unless it’s the very fuckin disemboweled reverse embalmed water you’ve been looking the fuck forward to. It was for me; and no, that is not why, checks notes, I lived next to a garden of bones for nearly 2 years.

Some people say drinking sea water is good for the digestive system, 10 teaspoons of it contain about 500 million viruses. 10 teaspoons converts to about 50ml, just over one shot of liquor at a bar in the US. This album isn’t salty, it’s more like 180proof (90%alcohol for the rest of the world) home distilled white lightning.

There is a reason I went on about salty water. Salt used to be extremely valuable and even though the story of it having been used to pay Roman legionnaires is apocryphal, the word for salary does derive from it. T got a fuckin job and that’s why the new album is “bad…” “how bad?” so bad you’re gonna have to pawn all your other off-beat quirky black metal tapes for a plastic surgery appointment after the face you make clicking on the showcased track in Bandcamp.

Taking beautifully brash and warm keys and pairing it with the crusted fuzzed out guitar and bass of a production chosen, and nonchalantly so, according to T an effect of his not being able to produce that well. What a fucking joke. This is primo gothy, disco black horror punk.

There are harsh vocals here, there are riffs reeking of decomposition, but there’s also so much fun to be had, like impaling clergy on gothic spires, you know, with a mohawk to boot and their entrails out for the horror appeal. If you buy the limited-edition hard copy, there are some big giveaways to some of the stylized choices in their audio tapestry Cemetery Trip has gone for over the years, especially in the uhm latter bit of the album.

Many bands are trying the same things, there are many goth bands, people that use synthesizers, there are also musicians that sprinkle every 13th second of their creation with quirkiness, with perhaps a satirical jibe at what creation is. Then there’s Cemetery Trip that will take what you thought of as yule chimes, you know snowflakes, not that kind, and icicles clinking together and making happy end of harvest and midwinter sounds for around the fire. Well, the fuckin world is on fire, hence the ‘500 million’ reference, the song in turn which references the Georgia Guidestones.

“B.L.A.T.T.O.T.L” stands for Beheaded Leader At The Temple Of The Lycanthrope, what an opening, what a track. T wondered if I would hate the album. Hahahaha. You’d have to get me lobotomized.

The opening of the 5th track reminded me of other magical musical hapaxes like that found in the “Spring” of the big Viv, you know, Vivaldi. Or That riff from “The Czar” of Mastodon (R.I.P. Brent and thanks for all the music).

There are payoff riffs, there are singular monolithic moments in the history of music that most people can go, yep, that’s a great tune, that transitional moment there, this opener here, that bridge (and solo, and yes Tempo of the Damned again, I know), omg that solo, and how about that goddamn bass! The beginning of “B.L.A.T.T.O.T.L” is a moment that gets me every single fucking time.

There are hints of going back to it, yet, here is the highest praise I can give a one-man black metal punk-as-fuck effort, “Beheaded…” gives me Rebel Wizard vibes. Even when so far removed in the sonic field. If you can’t see it, it has to do with artistic freedom, the time spent on perfecting the sounds we are met with together with serious chops behind the instruments and a solid sense of humor hiding in plain sight. Not hiding, but a joke this album is not.

Lots of delay and reverb could get the effect one finds on here, I’m sure some forensic audio detectives could work out all the effects used on the album. There is further use of distortion on the vocals later on in the track that blend them into the music as more of an instrument than an outlet of theme.

There are quite a few voiceovers on this album that might be about acid. Like switching on the TV to snow, frequency hopping between demented and at times tainted flashbacks to implanted memories. I went down a few rabbit holes in search of some of the voiceovers on Sour Risk, to not much avail. T told me that if I can find the quote at the 2:40 min mark of “Icewall Truckers” that there is a prize. I went through a shit ton of old drug documentaries and if it isn’t in here, or in here, then I probably never will.

“Icewall Truckers” catches me offside each time with its zaniness. And then just hits hard as fuck at the end. This track is not confirmed to be about flashbacks or the rewiring of one’s brain that occurs with taking too much psychedelics. “Icewall Truckers” is one of the most uplifting black metal songs I’ve heard in a while, it’s where the chimes come in to an almost slapstick extent, the lyrics are anything but.

“Under 500 million” and its predecessor give more lucidity in the clean-ish guitar. Whereas Sour Risk’s tracks come through at a higher decibel rate compared to its predecessor, there’s way more crust, with this weird clarity in sound for some parts, paired with little imperfections with intent. Other parts sound like we’re thrown into a livestock auction. Doomy, some space electronica wiggles and then that ’80s TV show epic vibe pulling through.

If there is a huge difference in production ‘values’ from Cave Beast to here, the artist claims that they just aren’t that good at it.  Too bloody modest. The more I listen to this album the fuzz and rawness is what makes it pop, it elevates the other elements. A use of sonic snow, the kind that you get not on the first day, but the filthy snow on those days that it just ain’t cold enough to keep the ground frozen.

Cemetery Trip’s lyrics might be slathered in a despair at the state of the world, it is however also filled to the brim with a lifeforce and vitality that stand as a call to arms to art. To make, to dream, to add meaning to a world that can seem too much to bear at times. It’s also about the desperation of how fucked the world is. It’s a rallying call to say hey, you’re seen, shit is weird out there, you’re not alone.

There’s folk metal, there’s historical metal, there’s metal that chooses a style of convention, of a comfortable popular accepted status quo. Then there’s retro-wave.  Sour Risk’s physical release will be distributed by Jems Label and it will apparently include three bonus songs. Unlike some albums where bonus tracks are used as filler, something cool to do or at the expense of running out of ideas, here the songs chosen fit in perfectly with the style and some are even elevated to new realms.

One of them that deals with demonic dreams has some of the clearest tones heard on the album until this bouncy as fuck psycho-disco goth-punk bass section pulses through. Who knew metal can be this goddamn fun, and dancy? There is another bonus track that has something to do with ghouls going on a rampage, that ends with a 20 second silence, which apparently should have been cut, Cemetery Trip told me there was no prize for spotting it, but that was the prize. It’s the price we pay, that time, that silence, count those seconds for the silence between waves brushed in the kaleidoscope of possibilities in sound enhances their existence. There is no here and no matter without its opposite after all.

The physical release has not been announced yet as far as I know, but the extra material will be worth the wait. Seriously. To some ears one of these might sound like nails on a blackboard, to me it’s sonic candy. If the rest of the album had fuzz and crustiness, here the hiss pedal got turned up to 11.

The advance copy of the album T sent me got confiscated at customs cos art needs to be examined for lyrical content before entering the utopic paradise of previously known Indochina.

I was able to get the cd pretty easily upon visiting the immigration office though, because the whole building was high as a kite when I walked in. I then took it to my friend who works in a lab doing drug testing and she told me that she got high from unsheathing the plastic that customs didn’t even get past, while wearing gloves.

I only put the album in my cd player and pressed play once, but by some form of sonomancy I’ve heard it more times than I can count by now. And it keeps getting better. It should have come with a warning label. Little did I know that the motherfucker laced the whole goddamn cd in some unknown designer drug, I’ve been hallucinating for 2 months straight and I can’t stop it or slow it down!

Approach with extreme caution. Sour Risk is liquid acid diethylamide in sonic form. What if someone loses their goddamn mind!? /s

Sour Risk is the interrobang of the metal soundscape of 2025. It’s unconventional, it is an exclamation, a question, a reaction of surprise. It’s a fuckin masterpiece in disguise. It was released on September 5th. The artwork was created by Mortvs (@bloodpiredeatth),

Cemetery Trip are:

T – everything

Cover art by: Mortvs

Single art by: Blasphemator

Links:

Cemetery Trip Instagram

Cemetery Trip Bandcamp