'They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O', the fifth album from Cult of Dom Keller, is out today
Cult of Dom Keller are today releasing their fifth album, ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’! Since 2007 the British band have been leaving a trail of sonic fever dreams, dark psychedelia and experimentalism that beats with a heavy industrial heart and the forthcoming LP sees them conjuring their heaviest and most adventurous work to date. Channelling recent limitations and turning them to their advantage, Cult of Dom Keller found themselves radically altering their creative approach and morphing their sound into a whole new beast. On this album the band hone in on an industrial noise-rock sound that is pushed to the brink. You can stream the LP full below and pick it up on vinyl, CD and cassette here.
Detailing the ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’ LP, the band said: “We managed to create our most experimental and exciting album to date without being in the same room together. U.F.O. was recorded, mixed and produced by ourselves, meaning we had total control over every noise on the record. This was the exact record we wanted to make: Experimental and playful; moments of light and pure dark... we wanted to f*ck with the listener and pull them in with moments of beauty and chaos.”
Opening track ‘Run From The Gullskinna’ demonstrates this duality straight off the bat. It contrasts bittersweet shoegaze melodies with a motorik rhythm section that drives the song into a nightmarish finale at a breakneck pace. There’s also the abrasive psychedelia of ‘Infernal Heads’ (which the band describe as a “twisted pop song” at heart) and the more cinematic and slow-burning ‘Cage The Masters’, an engrossing track which feels as cathartic as the title imagines.
‘They Carried The Dead In The U.F.O’ is littered with the band’s heaviest work to date and it’s here where we really see them throw themselves into their new direction with unapologetic intent. Taking its name from the Greek goddess of rage, ‘Lyssa’ is an outpouring of discordant, industrial noise-rock that’s centred around dissonant guitars, explosive walls of sound and unsettling electronics: “With 'Lyssa' we wanted to make a track that channelled that discontent currently being felt across the world. It's about dissonance, anger and how misdirection and misinformation is used to control and weaponise people against their own interests.”
Then there’s the blistering, incendiary psych-rock heard on ‘Last King of Hell’, a seven-minute cut that tells the tale of “a protagonist who–no matter how hard he tries, and how in harmony he thinks he is with the world–-fails to see that he is actually part of the problem.” Elsewhere, ‘She’s Turning Into A Serpent’ trades in a mechanical proto-punk sound that’s driven by a menacing and suitably snake-like groove and scornful spoken-word vocals.
Cult of Dom Keller have long been at the forefront of the contemporary British psych scene but their notorious reputation also extends much further afield too. They’ve done several tours around the UK, Europe and US and shared the stage with greats like Roky Erickson, Spectrum, Silver Apples and The Sisters of Mercy, as well as contemporaries like The Black Angels, Fat White Family and Temples (they even had fellow Nottingham troublemakers Sleaford Mods support them in the early days.)
‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’ arrives off the back of last year’s mostly-instrumental ‘Ascend!’ LP and their third full-length ‘Goodbye To The Light’, released back in 2016. Fierce experimentalists, no Cult of Dom Keller record has ever sounded the same (to quote the band: “Who wants to make the same record twice? We just do what the f*ck we feel like making”) and the forthcoming ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’ is by no different. Here, the experimental onslaught that ensues is not only another new direction but their best one yet.
