There are some people who, when they tell you to sit up and take notice of a band, you instinctively trust their judgement. This is one such situation and, despite not having come across DEAFKIDS before (my loss, I know), it took just a few moments for the stuttering noise of the opening track to work its way through my misfiring synapses and make me a convert.
Hailing from Brazil and signed to Neurot Recordings (another strong mark in the band’s favour), DEAFKIDS are a duo, comprising Douglas Leal (vocals, guitar, electronics, samplers, percussion, artwork, etc) and Marian Sarine (drums, percussion, electronics, bass). They formed in 2010, joining the Neurot stable in 2017, and it’s easy to see why their cross-genre sounds have enabled them to share stages with everyone from Neurosis and Eyehategod to Godflesh and Melt Banana.
CICATRIZES DO FUTURO (SCARS OF THE FUTURE) is the band’s first non-collaborative effort since 2019 and features nine-tracks of hypnotic, chaotic noise, that recalls the pioneering spirit of bands such as Fugazi and Aphex Twin without sounding much like either. It’s incredibly exciting and, without wishing to allow my hyperbole to run completely away with me, I find it hard to imagine that the album will not ride high in my albums of the year list.
You might not think, at first, that DEAFKIDS have much to offer. The album starts with a stuttering morass of noise that sounds for all the world like the CD is damaged. Persevere, however, and the opening track, PARASITA, emerges as a hyperactive hybrid of Igor Cavalera, Dave Lombardo’s solo work and Future Sound Of London – all heavily processed, echoing vocals and pummelling, tribal percussion. Once upon a time, such music would have been happily promoted on the fringes in publications such as NME and Uncut, but now it sits so far away from the polished banality of the mainstream as to be quite beyond the pale, and it’s all the better for it.
The spirit of Future Sound Of London continues to hang over DEAFKIDS as the hypnotic CICATRIZES emerges. Initially a pulsing, almost danceable number, the increasingly dense usage of echo and a particularly stinging guitar riff serve to take it in a darker direction, although that central beat remains. Following an announcement that “we are going to explore the province of the mind”, DEAFKIDS take a detour into dub on PROFECIA. A dirty dub it is, with stabs of grungy guitar lancing out from the waves of percussion, but dub nonetheless, recalling shades of Nine Inch Nails’ remix albums and Girls Against Boys in the process. Then, there’s SIMULACRO, the beat of which seems to ping pong between the speakers as synths pulse and degrade at the track’s core. Somewhere within it all, you sense there’s a hard industrial song trying to break out and, as the track reaches its send, you do get glimpses of it, although it’s often obscured by the wilfully oblique production
At the album’s heart lies a longer track, the near-six-minute ADVERTENCIA, which opens on tinny cymbals before expanding into a Latino rhythm that recalls Alan Silvestri’s work on Predator 2. Made all the more intense by the scarcely heard words that tumble out between the beats, it’s a hypnotic exercise in unsettling noise. Interestingly, it’s also one of the only tracks on the album to fade down to nothing, allowing something of a reset before the chaotic, Aphex Twin-isms of REFLEXO. One of the album’s harder edged tracks, it builds to a sweaty climax that once again dips into NIN territory (specifically Further Down The Spiral), only for the dub-laden FEITCO to throw the listener completely through a loop with its nods to Leftfield and Orbital.
Following another surprise fade out, POSSESSAO COLETIVA heads into pure horror territory, as a slowed down and distorted voice slithers between a hazy synth line. When the percussion returns, it pairs Latin rhythms with industrial aesthetic, a soundscape that DEEAFKIDS explore over the course of six-and-a-half harrowing minutes. The final track, EM TRANSE, brings this diverse album to an end on what is, perversely, the most straight forward industrial metal song the band have to offer. Still dense and swathed in layers of noise, it nevertheless boasts a surprisingly direct guitar line, the band not so much easing the listener back to reality as booting them back into a world they left behind for some forty-odd minutes, the operative word being “odd”.
CICATRIZES DO FUTURO is one of those albums that delights in surprising the listener. It traverses a huge range of genres and references any number of artists without sounding like any one of them and yet… and yet…
It has a coherence that is impressive given the diversity of the material. And, for all that the production seems to scowl at the listener, once you get past the heavy use of echo and distortion, there is a memorable pulse to the music that both wants to set you moving and keep you hooked for the duration.
A genuinely exciting and innovative record, CICATRIZES DO FUTURO is an unexpected highlight of the year thus far and marks, I suspect, the beginning of a personal descent down a DEAFKIDS rabbit hole as I seek to catch up on what their fans have seemingly known all along. At any event, the album has made me a convert and comes highly recommended for fans of the obscure and the unusual. 9/10
