Duvel
Attempts at Speech
Fysisk Format (2018)
Welcome to Duvel’s childlike fantasy, their ruminations inspired by Norwegian life. The bleak echoing of whatever neurosis such a wonderfully Scandinavian culture produces, other than seasonal depression and too much equality, speaks through them in musical duality. This album is so childlike, oftentimes aloof, stumbling upon pure goodness as if by accident. They are Parsifal, before he got his name, stumbling upon the castle guarding the Holy Grail: a holy fool shooting the holy swan with his bow and arrow, unaware of what ground he’s trampling over. Just like Parsifal discovered the Holy Grail by following the knights and their shiny armor, Duvel got here by emulating their heroes, no doubt Joy Division being among them. What is their bow, their weapon of choice? The musical talent they’ve honed, at times awkward, and at times sublimely simple. When Parsifal kills the swan with his bow, he misses the mark (Greek and Hebrew definitions of sin are akin to missing the mark in spear throwing, or missing the gold in the center of the target but hitting the target itself). When Attempts at Speech misses the mark when it sounds derivative, and awkwardly simplistic. But the scene that Parsifal stumbles upon … Read more
Northwoods
Wasteland
Mothership Records (2018)
'[T]here the nightingale filled all the desert with inviolable voice and still she cried, and still the world pursues, "Jug … Read more
