Oakland alt-rock trio Sword Tongue presents ‘Murder White Noise’, a wry commentary on the state of the world and our attempts to soothe ourselves to get through it. The latest offering from their explosive Bonfire In The Tempest EP – their fourth to date.
In an increasingly stressful world, this song explores how people try to externalize their anxieties by consuming content that allows them to feel better about their own lives. We attempt to cope with the pressure of maintaining equilibrium by coming together to grieve, worry, and comfort each other, often finding that the only way to feel good about our lives is to reflect on others’ misfortunes.
Creating dark music for dark times, Sword Tongue is vocalist Jennifer Wilde and guitarist Gaetano Maleki, a husband and wife who launched this project in the pandemic year of 2020, now joined by renowned drummer-producer Dan Milligan.
“I started consuming true crime content as a way to turn off the thoughts that kept me awake at night and distracted me during the day. One day I told a friend I was a listening to a livestreamed trial where a lady put her husband on a burn pile. She said “WHOAH, what is that, murder white noise?” As I told people about the song, I found many others watch crime stories as a release from their stressful lives. It is important to bring that into the conversation about how we are coping today,” says Jennifer Wilde.
“Finding comfort in tragedy is new for me; during the pandemic and especially in the last year I find myself needing to look for reassurance that whatever I am facing is not as bad as it could be. ‘Murder White Noise’ was written as a way to come to grips that someone else’s pain is that content, and what that says about where we are as a society right now. Gaetano wrote the perfect guitar line that hooks you in to get to the truth of the song.”
On ‘Murder White Noise’, soothing vocals contrast with the song’s macabre lyrical content, while steadily thrumming instrumentation lulls you into a false sense of security. For a moment, the listener feels heard and encouraged, then questions their own motivations, left to wonder whether they are now the tragic victim in this story. ”From a songwriting perspective, this pulled a lot of anxiety out of me,” says Gaetano Maleki. “While writing the guitar and bass lines, I wanted to bring out tension to mirror the vocals, but with some kind of seductive undertones. I feel the instruments really complement the lyrics, like a hard boiled soundtrack.”
It’s been another incredible year for Benefits, and one which has seen them evolve – and drop a single with Pete Doherty ahead of their second album, Constant Noise, due on 21 March 2025 via Invada Records.
And what a treat for Christmas eve – a new tune which is, again, more ambient than noisy, but which pitches a low-key and quite menacing-sounding spoken-word assessment of the state of things as war rages around the world and death tolls continue to increase as do tensions as the West bankrolls mass destruction and civilian slaughter.
New Benefits may not be quite as in-yer-face sonically, but don’t think for a second that they’ve gone soft.
Canadian industrial act, DI AUGER has just unleashed their new video, a commentary on world-wide geopolitical issues called ‘Brave New World’. The concept for the ‘Brave New World’ video was designed to capture the literal content of the song.
The message in the song is this: We are one people, one race and we exist to perpetually destroy ourselves and erase our existence from this planet. The song closes with the sarcastic view of our new collective mindfulness. Prove me and the next generation wrong. Fighting racism, climate change, pollution, overpopulation, human rights. Where has it gotten us? We are reliving the past here and now. The ideology is the same as are the reactions and the emotions.
Now we live in this brave new world; one with its promises for salvation under a unified umbrella as long as YOU stay in line and do what the government tells you. OBEY and don’t criticize, or comment, make a fuss or subjectively analyze. ‘Brave New World’ appears on the album, Under The Skin Of The World and is available digitally NOW.
Aural Aggravation 
Watch: ‘Murder White Noise’ by Sword Tongue
Posted: 29 October 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPsTags: alt rock, Anxiety, commentary, Murder White Noise, Single, Stream, stress, Sword Tongue, true crime, Video
Oakland alt-rock trio Sword Tongue presents ‘Murder White Noise’, a wry commentary on the state of the world and our attempts to soothe ourselves to get through it. The latest offering from their explosive Bonfire In The Tempest EP – their fourth to date.
In an increasingly stressful world, this song explores how people try to externalize their anxieties by consuming content that allows them to feel better about their own lives. We attempt to cope with the pressure of maintaining equilibrium by coming together to grieve, worry, and comfort each other, often finding that the only way to feel good about our lives is to reflect on others’ misfortunes.
Creating dark music for dark times, Sword Tongue is vocalist Jennifer Wilde and guitarist Gaetano Maleki, a husband and wife who launched this project in the pandemic year of 2020, now joined by renowned drummer-producer Dan Milligan.
“I started consuming true crime content as a way to turn off the thoughts that kept me awake at night and distracted me during the day. One day I told a friend I was a listening to a livestreamed trial where a lady put her husband on a burn pile. She said “WHOAH, what is that, murder white noise?” As I told people about the song, I found many others watch crime stories as a release from their stressful lives. It is important to bring that into the conversation about how we are coping today,” says Jennifer Wilde.
“Finding comfort in tragedy is new for me; during the pandemic and especially in the last year I find myself needing to look for reassurance that whatever I am facing is not as bad as it could be. ‘Murder White Noise’ was written as a way to come to grips that someone else’s pain is that content, and what that says about where we are as a society right now. Gaetano wrote the perfect guitar line that hooks you in to get to the truth of the song.”
On ‘Murder White Noise’, soothing vocals contrast with the song’s macabre lyrical content, while steadily thrumming instrumentation lulls you into a false sense of security. For a moment, the listener feels heard and encouraged, then questions their own motivations, left to wonder whether they are now the tragic victim in this story.
”From a songwriting perspective, this pulled a lot of anxiety out of me,” says Gaetano Maleki. “While writing the guitar and bass lines, I wanted to bring out tension to mirror the vocals, but with some kind of seductive undertones. I feel the instruments really complement the lyrics, like a hard boiled soundtrack.”
AA