Darker With The Day

This morning's epiosde features an interview with Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton, collectively known as Arab Strap. I'm Totally Fine With It Don't Give A Fuck Anymore, Arab Strap's latest album, was released back in May by Rock Action Records.

Plus the following review, featured just prior to Autoluminescent by Midwife.

Midwife: No Depression In Heaven (The Flenser)

Released September 9th, 2024

Madeline Johnston returns with her fourth album as Midwife, the ethereal, dreamlike, No Depression In Heaven. Owing its title to a Carter Family song, Johnston and the Carters may at first seem like strange bedfellows, but one need only scratch the surface to see that each has a predilection for detailing atypical aspects of the American experience. 

Midwife’s songs are filled with stories of the left behind, the overlooked and the unexposed, the Americans that America doesn’t want you to see. The Carters, long revered in the folk canon, document a period of American life that is often glorified by those seeking to portray a rosy-cheeked image of the good ol’ US of A. Despite this fact, their songs routinely championed the lives of the sinful, the resentful and —at times— the downright vengeful.

Marvin Heemeyer is one example of this hidden America. As the engineer and operator of the “Killdozer,” a reinforced and weaponised bulldozer, in 2004 Heemeyer went on a spree of destruction in the small town of Granby, Colorado, taking his own life at its conclusion. His rampage was in response to a series of property disputes and he has since gone on to become something of a libertarian folk hero.

Midwife memorialises Heemeyer with Killdozer, a surprisingly beautiful track and the album’s lead-in single. Killdozer’s lyrics read as a warning against gentrification and it’s unclear as to whether Johnston views Heemeyer as either a hero or a lunatic. This sense of obfuscation is admirable in a songwriter, one shouldn’t expect artists to tell their listeners how to think, but instead to provide them with the necessary information to form their own opinions.

No Depression In Heaven features a cover of Autoluminescent, by the late Australian songwriter, Rowland S. Howard. When attempting a cover, it is important to retain some of the aura of the original, while also justifying its re-recording. Autoluminescent is almost esoteric in its beauty and Johnston’s spectral version retains much of its mystery, doing it justice but not quite reaching the heights of the original.

Closing out the album is the title track, No Depression In Heaven, a mournfully alluring song containing only two words, “Crying” and “HaHa.” Its slow, arpeggiated riff changes little throughout the almost six-minute song and —like musical morphine— it gradually lulls the listener into a state of sonic anaesthesia.

Johnston describes her music as “heaven-metal” and her sound is certainly unique. Released by The Flenser, perhaps the most forward-thinking label operating within the metal genre, Midwife shares a label and stages with artists considered heavy in a much more traditional sense. Midwife’s music, anchored in Johnston’s ghostly guitar playing and celestial vocals, occupies a space that is psychologically far more substantial than your typical metal act. No Depression In Heaven’s songs speak of yearning and distance, love and loss, enveloping the listener in an enchanting and melancholic fugue state; casting a spell that lasts and lingers.

Nick Stephan