by Polina Pekurovsky
Cult of Dom Keller’s latest album, released last year on Fuzz Club Records, grabs your attention with punchy, gritty, experimental sounds that may as well escape this universe entirely. They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O is an industrial, psychedelic album that emits a feeling of uncanniness by incorporating crunchy vocals and extra-terrestrial sounds. As their Bandcamp bio states, Cult of Dom Keller are making songs that “appear to have been born from another universe, all from the confines of their sonic bunker.” Although the British band’s fifth album continues to build on their previous sound, this may be the most experimental one to date. The eight-track album pulls you deeper into a dark, unsettling hole with distinct tracks that each accomplish different musical goals.
The album begins with “Run for the Gullskina,” a seven minute track that incorporates their signature distorted guitar sound with melodic string elements and dreamy vocals. This track encompasses a lot of what we associate with English industrial post-punk, but make it stranger, more gothic and psychedelic. It’s a jumble of sounds that keeps listeners on their toes. The last three minutes of the song is pure psychedelic drone, which practically begs you to listen at full volume. It’s as if Brian Jonestown Massacre was a little grungier and not as “nice.”
The most rhythmically interesting track on the album is “Psychic Surgery,” aptly named. It starts off with a funky drum sound and vocals that sound like they’re coming from a radio transmitter. No song is like any other on the album, but Cult of Dom Keller still manages to create a cohesive force. “Psychic Surgery” may be the most experimental track on the record, and at times the rhythm feels off. Cult of Dom Keller uses this element to effectively convey the wild and unsettling tone they’re achieving with this album.
“I die every night but I’m born again” is repeated throughout the track “Cage the Masters.” The theme of death is apparent in the album as a whole, but this lyric creates a sense of death as a cyclical entity. Pairing this lyric with the dark and unsettling feeling of the album makes for an interesting dichotomy. Instrumentally, the track is intense and unnerving, but the lyric pulls you into a sort of comforting take on pain – its’ recurrent nature, followed by re-birth. Following this track with “Amazing Energy” offers a beautiful, ethereal respite that shifts the energy into calmer space. Heavy on the synth sounds, the track still incorporates Cult of Dom Keller’s signature fuzz guitar melodies and breathy vocals, albeit more peaceful. The album closes with “Last King of Hell,” a seven-minute track that steals the show. While an interesting choice for the closer track due to its’ length, the rhythmical nature of it is less experimental than the others and pushes it closer to what we would dub as “psych rock” through and through.
Cult of Dom Keller has succeeded in creating an incredibly strange and experimental album. As it says on their Bandcamp, Cult of Dom Keller are “DIY sonic alchemists [who] have been creating whacked out soundscapes,” and they’re absolutely right.