The last handful of times I’ve visited Minneapolis have been surprisingly pleasant. I stumbled across a couple sweet used bookstores in addition to my usual haunts which never fail to extract money from my wallet, the Twins were playing a home game during one of my visits and the game was being shown on a gigantic big screen in a comfortably populated public space outside the stadium, all the shows I was in town for were sold out, old dudes would comment with friendly nostalgia about the Cows shirt I was wearing and, most shockingly, one of the visits happened to be in December and it was warm enough that jackets weren’t required. And each time I got to hang with soundman extraordinaire, Anthony Columbus.
Of course, as I was just passing through each time, I wasn’t privy to much of anything surrounding the dark side of life in the Twin Cities: the George Floyd murder, police brutality and subsequent protests, the struggles and adjustments faced by the large immigrant population coming from African countries, and if you don’t need a jacket in Minneapolis in December then climate change is an undeniable real thing. And I missed out on the Caterwaul Festival (mentioned here last month).
Minneapolis’ noise rock punk metal miscreants Murf know their hometown all too well and express all that urban dread on their forthcoming third album, Already Dead. Described as “Murf at their darkest, most cynical and apocalyptic,” Already Dead is set for release via Learning Curve Records on June 7th and acts as a chronicle of dudes struggling to make sense of a world that makes no sense, a world in which common sense is uncommon and everyone is trying to put an amoral knee on the neck of everyone else for no discernible gain other than to say ‘fuck yours, I got mine.’
Below we’re streaming Already Dead’s chaotic dystopia for you to experience and hear the sound of the Midwest and metallic noise rock colliding and collapsing upon itself. Says the band about their latest creation:
“‘Don’t cry for Murf, they’re already dead…’ Since they first unleashed their chaotic conduct of confetti cannons and blood baptisms on the Minneapolis noise-rock scene nearly a decade ago, Murf has long been masquerading as metal/punk jesters while channeling inner demons into turbulent tunes that serve as sonic coping mechanisms for enduring grief and misery. Now, after independently releasing two albums and one seven-inch, the group is ready to unveil their latest album, Already Dead, a record that represents Murf at their darkest, most cynical, and apocalyptic. Already Dead seeks to break the thick walls of PTSD, re-examining the past with more matured eyes yet still standing in awe at the intensity/insanity of life. It addresses surviving a pandemic, living in the city that sparked a worldwide discussion on police brutality, the bitter-sweet feelings of nostalgia with those who are no longer here and commenting on hyper-commercialism. All the familiar ingredients of Murf’s sinister sound are still present: ear-splitting symphonies of grotesque guitars clash with brooding bass lines and feverish drum fills, serving as a stormy score for volatile vocals that shriek sorrowing sonnets. Tracks like ‘Nice Try/Little Man,’ ‘Recall’ and ‘Have a Nice Day’ find Murf at their most explorative peaks, offering thrashing odysseys that constantly veer off into different directions of pummeling riffs and portentous tones. Other songs, such as ‘My Neighbor,’ ‘Slaughtered Lamb’ and ‘Frank’s Hand’ serve as disturbing character studies, providing the listener with nefarious narratives backed by menacing textures of feedback fury and clamoring chords. The LP takes a long look at the warping landscape of social media and its relationship with art, imagining the post-apocalyptic landscape with the current landscape of billionaire characters. Overall this is the band’s darkest, most aggressive, and yet celebratory work. But despite being their hardest work to date, at the core, there’s always an element of some fun in the morbid chaos — one just needs to be low enough to find the humor in it all.”
Adds vocalist Dan Hoffstrom: “Serenity in insanity, warmth beside the flames of an old world burning down, laughing off that which is not funny until you’ve been made mad by it, Already Dead is sonically and thematically our most mature body of work reflecting a time in which time were beaten down and forced to say goodbye to more family members while existing in a world that is headed towards sheer destruction. This work is a testament to the strength of us as a group, being faced with more trauma only to transform the negative energy into a sonic rollercoaster of heavy noise. We’re already dead, so nothing can hurt us anymore. We walk with the ashes of an old world and smile at the new knowing that all of this could end at any moment.”
They’ll also be hitting the road next month, should you be so inclined:
