It’s autumn, so time for everyone to react to the season in weird ways. You can find the crunchy forest leaves and shelved pumpkins endearing, or become housebound by the smoky, rainy earlier sunsets. Going one step further, Intercourse—autumnal by their very New England-ness—double down on the dreaded void, recognising how we seemingly plug it with distractions cute, hopelessly optimistic and arbitrary. At the end of the day, the earth’s shit endures.
That’s the perfect formula for a troupe enamoured with making us collectively feel the weight of life, playing off of misery using self-deprecation and a riveting taste of noise rock with the metallic edge of its pissed-off neighbours: hardcore and powerviolence. From the front image of their apt full-length How I Fell In Love With The Void, where cheerful exotic dancer Clementine seems to be joyfully awaiting the off-cover impending doom, there’s tales of introspective anger and B-movie not–too-serious gruesomeness (Running A Cemetery Without A License). It’s no surprise hearing the band worked in an October studio surrounded by horror memorabilia, which only adds extra colours to their often harrowing takes on personal events.
Some of this music was specifically recorded when only a certain mood would do; Cryptid Divorce Court, as its name suggests, is Ahmed’s “woe is me with my broken heart” song about his divorce that came flooding out in one-go, as the instruments feel too, dipping the closest to scrappy punk rager. Such heart-on-sleeve musings suit Ahmed’s diary-like delivery, coming close to David Yow’s slathering vocals on the skramz-nearing Zoloft And Blow, letting Caleb Porter and Pete Stroczkowski goes all scattergun in its final deteriorating moments on drums and bass respectively.
It draws similar comparisons to Jesus Lizard’s now torch-handlers Chat Pile, especially on I’m Very Tired Please Let Me Die—all spidery leads and shouting—and it’s the deadpan straightness of it all that so successfully lets the sombre undertones hide beneath the rage. This also feels echoed by Ahmed’s fascination with Max Wright, the titular Broadway great of opener The Ballad Of Max Wright whose acting chops were reduced to starring behind puppet alien Alf. In the song’s context, there’s jealousy for bands able to rake in coins while they sit patiently by counting pennies, still committed to the artfulness of it but recognising how scene politics can be a tricky business.
Very much throughout, fantastical horror and the real world commingle. On Cadaver Resume Ahmed states, “I read David Foster Wallace, I read the obituary. […] I read Cormac McCarthy, I’m still reading the obituary, because I think of death more than I do sex”. The singer’s always returning to inevitable sadness after escaping into a fictional world that only makes the harshness of where we live more visceral. In a more literal way, the album highlight is titled Unsuccessfully Attempting To Parse Nightmare From Reality, a freakshow roller coaster that runs amok and crashes over and over again, with skittering riffs evoking the scarab scenes from the Mummy movie franchise.
Intercourse have always felt like the equivalent of heading out on the lash anguished by a personal gripe that’ll only become more pronounced. There’s spiralling discord and menace all over this thing, with the anecdotal vignettes dipping into sarcasm, violence, hatred, love and self-examination which is, for better or worse, what life’s all about. The band’s in our court with some gnarly zippers that either help distract one from, or lean into, the void they’ve accepted themselves. It’s one hell of a way to go either way. Hooray!
For fans of: Deadguy, Couch Slut, Pissed Jeans
‘How I Fell In Love With The Void’ by Intercourse is released on 12th September on Brutal Panda Records.
Words by Elliot Burr
