Benefits have a new album, Constant Noise, due for release on 21st March 2025 on Invada Records. ‘Relentless’ is the first taste of it. It certainly marks a progression from Nails. Who would have predicted a collaboration with Pete Doherty even just a few short months ago?
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Benefits blast in ahead of another substantial UK / EU tour with the release of the first new material since their debut album, Nails.
‘Land of the Tyrants’ features additional vocals by Zera Tønin of Arch Femmesis.
It may be more overtly dancey than previous outings, hitting an almost trance groove, perhaps even a bit KLF, and the rage is more simmering than roaring in in terms of delivery, but lyrically… as explosive as ever, ‘Land of the Tyrants’ tells it like it is. The video is more overtly produced, but it’s dark and stark. It’s grim up north, right?
Tour dates:
05/10 HUDDERSFIELD Parish
06/10 LANCASTER Kanteena
07/10 GLASGOW The Hug and Pint
08/10 EDINBURGH Wee Red Bar
09/10 ABERDEEN Tunnels
10/10 STIRLING Tolbooth
11/10 MIDDLESBROUGH Play Brew
12/10 LIVERPOOL The Shipping Forecast
13/10 PRESTON The Ferret
17/10 ROTTERDAM Left of the Dial Festival
18/10 UTRECHT ACU
19/10 ROTTERDAM Left of the Dial Festival
20/10 OSTEND Cafe de Zwerver
22/10 SOUTHAMPTON The Joiners 23/10 BRIGHTON Hope and Ruin
24/10 MARGATE Where Else
25/10 LONDON The George Tavern
26/10 NEWPORT Le Pub
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Pic: Tom White
Beak> surprise released their first album in six years, aptly titled >>>> out on all formats via Invada and Temporary Residence Ltd from 28th May, and received a massive thumbs up from us here at Aural Aggravation. They’ve now shared the music video for ‘The Seal’, directed by Tom Geens.
"I fell in love with the house when I first laid eyes on it. It was falling apart but in a really beautiful way. It was begging for something to be shot there, but as it was going to get demolished soon, I had to act fast. The last time I worked with Beak> was about 10 years ago on the exquisite soundtrack for my film COUPLE IN A HOLE and I felt their sound and the house were somehow a great match.” – Tom Geens
Watch it here:
Beak> on tour:
Wed 30 October – UK Cardiff, Clwb Ifor Bach
Fri 01 November – UK London, The O2 Forum Kentish Town
Sat 02 November – UK Brighton, Concorde 2
Wed 06 November – UK Manchester, New Century Hall
Thu 07 November – UK Glasgow, Saint Luke’s
Fri 08 November – UK Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
Mon 11 November – FR Lorient, L’Hydrophone
Wed 13 November – FR Paris, Élysée Montmartre
Fri 15 November – FR Lyon, L’Epicerie Moderne
Sat 16 November – FR Nantes, Le Lieu Unique
Sun 17 November – FR Tourcoing, Le Grand Mix
Tue 19 November – BE Brussels, Orangerie, Botanique
Wed 20 November – NL Amsterdam, Melkweg – Oude Zaal
Thu 21 November – NL Nijmegen, Doornroosje
Sat 23 November – CH Winterthur, Salzhaus
Mon 25 November – DE Munich, Hansa 39
Wed 27 November – DE Berlin, Gretchen
Fri 29 November – DK Copenhagen, Pumpehuset
Thu 12 December – IE Dublin, The Button Factory
Sat 14 December – UK Bristol, SWX
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Invada Records – 28th May 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
Well, this one landed out of the blue. A boon for fans, a shock to everyone, necessitating a reshuffle of review diaries for the likes of me.
It’s been six years since the last Beak> album. There are good reasons for this, as they explain: “After playing hundreds of gigs and festivals over the years we felt that touring had started to influence our writing to the point we weren’t sure who we were anymore. So we decided to go back to the origins of where we were at on our first album. With zero expectations and just playing together in a room.”
This is a remarkable slice of honesty about the effects of touring on the creative process, and band relationships. Most bands start at home – in some sense – with writing songs and the aspiration of touring those songs. But the dynamics change with success, and when touring relentlessly, time to write new material is squeezed. Over time, particularly with a pandemic interfering with, well, everything, many bands evolve their methods to operate over distance, and there’s always a risk that some of the dynamic is lost and stuff gets dialled in. It’s true that it’s now possible for bands to operate at distance, intercontinentally, even, but that’s not the Beak> way. They thrive on that instant interplay, the interaction, and without it, there’s simply no Beak>.
When they do come together they work fast. Single ‘Oh Know’ was ‘recorded on the only day the band could physically get together during the winter lockdown’ and released in October 2021. They really do make the most of their time, and their music – particularly this latest effort – froths with the urgency of pressured time. The urgency which has always permeated their music is banged up a couple of gears here, and as a result, >>>> is a frenzied explosion, with perhaps a desperate edge.
This being a Beak> album, it’s brimming with experimentalism, oddness, woozy psychedelia and persistent Krautrock pulsations, relentless beats. This being a Beak> album, it’s bloody great, and a lot of fun.
But that said, much of >>>> actually feels pretty bleak. Yes, Beak> turn bleak. It’s like a band having a blast while staring into the abyss, conscious that the end is near, but carrying on because at some point…
Of the album’s sudden and unexpected release, the band say in their statement, “At its core we always wanted it to be head music (music for the ‘heads’, not headphone music), listened to as an album, not as individual songs. This is why we are releasing this album with no singles or promo tracks.”
‘Oh Know’ isn’t included here, but the album does, however, include flipside ‘Ah Yeh’, and it does slot in nicely with its downtempo, lo-fi Pavement on sedatives vibe. It’s kinda loose, with rattling drums and drags out with a quivering organ drifting over a tense bassline, and it works something of a trance-inducing spell over the course of six minutes. You get the sense that however long and far part these guys are, they share a magical intuition, and whenever they do manage to get into a room together, creative sparks fly.
The band continues, “the recording and writing initially began in a house called Pen Y Bryn in Talsarnau, Wales in the fall out from the weirdness of the Covid days. Remote and with only ourselves and the view of Portmeirion in the distance we got to work.”
“With the opening track, ‘Strawberry Line’ (our tribute to our dear furry friend Alfie Barrow, who appears on the album’s cover) as the metronomic guide for the album, we then resumed recording, as before, at Invada studios in Bristol, whilst still touring around Europe and North/South America.”
‘Strawberry line’ makes for fairly a low-key opener, with a trilling organ and psychedelic reverby-drenched vocals rippling atop a bubbling bass before a shuffling beat enters the scene. But it stands as an eight-minute statement of intent, with that statement being that >>>> packs density to equal its melody. ‘The Seal’ delves into Krautrock, with a relentless groove centred around the rhythm section dominating. It grows dark. It grows tense. It’s sparse, minimal, but it persists, and four and a half minutes in, there’s a taut, jangling Joy Division guitar part.
Chilly synths and a robotic, rolling, repetitive bassline dominate the slow-melting ‘Denim’, a hazy psychedelic downer which delivers delayed gratification with the bursting of a monster riff. ‘Hungry Are We’ is delicate, reflective, post-rocky, with vocal harmonies which again allude to 60s pop and perhaps a bit of prog.
‘Bloody Miles’ marks a stylistic shift towards groovier territory, with a nagging bassline that borders on funk, but the tone remains doggedly downbeat, without getting depressing. With one foot firmly in the early 80s new wave sound, there’s no shortage of weirdness and warpy, brain-bending discord here, not least of all in the shadowy vintage-sounding electropop of ‘Secrets’, that brings together elements of Soft Cell and The Associates with the atmosphere and production of New Order’s Movement.
>>>> is often stark and claustrophobic (and nowhere more so on the eight-minute closer), and it’s always intense and brilliant. Beak> have surpassed themselves – again.
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Invada Records – 30th June 2023
Christopher Nosnibor
You know what? This never gets tired. I started reviewing live stuff in the 90s, but it wasn’t until 2008 I started receiving albums for review. Receiving albums ahead of release was a big deal back then: it made me feel somehow special. Advance promos probably meant something more then, on reflection. They would be, more likely than not., a single CD – or even a single-track CD – and my objective would be to get my review out ahead of, well, as many people as possible. It wasn’t so much about generating buzz as feeling a buzz.
I miss the steady drip of CDs and vinyl through the letterbox, although am coming to accept that space is an issue here, and if the endless bombardment of emails with downloads and streams sometimes – often – feels overwhelming, with up to fifty review submissions a day, when I clock a release I’ve been getting excited about well before time, the buzz still hits.
The way albums are released now isn’t quite the same, either: time was when there would be a single or two ahead of release, there’d be reviews and then the album would arrive and you’d have to buy it to hear it. Now, singles aren’t really singles and half the album’s been released on various streaming platforms along with a bunch of lyric videos and ‘visualisers’ (that’s one for another time). But having only slipped out a couple of tracks in a relatively low-key fashion in April and May, this landing in my inbox to download ahead of release, gave me a genuine buzz.
Gas Lit, released in 2021, was a powerful, album on so many levels. As they put it, the album was their ‘fight for Indigenous Sovereignty, Black and Indigenous Liberation, Water, Earth, and Indigenous land given back.’. The Australian duo make music with meaning, and do so with passion and sonic force.
How often do we hear recently that the failings were systemic? Systemic failings in the NHS led to deaths, and systemic failings in the schooling system resulted in kids committing suicide, systemic failings in vetting and so on has resulted in a culture of racism and misogyny in the MET police… daily, we hear or read news about systemic issues. And we know, we know the system is fucked. Not merely flawed: fucked.
And on fourth album Systemic, Divide and Dissolve examine ‘the systems that intrinsically bind us and calls for a system that facilitates life for everyone. It’s a message that fits with the band’s core intention: to make music that honours their ancestors and Indigenous land, to oppose white supremacy, and to work towards a future of Black and Indigenous liberation.’
“This music is an acknowledgement of the dispossession that occurs due to colonial violence,” says Takiaya Reed, saxophonist and guitarist in Divide and Dissolve. “The goal of the colonial project is to separate Indigenous people from their culture, their life force, their community and their traditions. The album is in direct opposition to this.”
Divide and Dissolve represent a people for whom the system hasn’t failed: it was always pitched against them, and succeeded in stripping Indigenous people of everything. What kind of system is it where this brutal debasement is a success? A capitalist one, of course.
Systemic certainly isn’t a flimsy pop record, then. But it is inherently listenable and does unashamedly incorporate pop elements, and this dynamic only serves to heighten its sonic power.
‘Want’ lulls us into a false sense of tranquillity, a looping motif pulsating over grand drones: it’s quite pleasant, even. And then ‘Blood Quantum’ hits: after a delicate, supple chamber-pop intro, the guitars crash in and it’s like a tidal wave. It’s a slow-stomping riff that grinds hard, and the textures are thick and rich.
The setup is simple, and the guitar and drum combo has become increasingly popular in recent years – but for all of its limitations, it also has considerable versatility, and Divide and Dissolve exploit and push those parameters by exploring the interplay between the two instruments when played slow and heavy and at high volume. And so it is that without words, their songs convey so much.
Photo by Yatri Niehaus
There’s almost something of a Duane Eddy / Western twang to ‘Simulacra’ before it explodes in a thrashing flurry of distortion and pummelling percussion. But for all the sludge-laden noise of ‘Reproach’, there is a grace and beauty about it, too, and this is what differentiates Divide and Dissolve from their myriad ‘heavy’ contemporaries: they imbue their songs with a palpable emotional depth. ‘Indignation’ begins with trilling woodwind, and possesses a wistful, aching jazz vibe before the thunderous deluge of guitar and drums heaps in. Featuring a spoken word recital from Minori Sanchez-Fung, ‘Kindgom of Fear’ is the only one of the album’s nine tracks to feature vocals: it’s a more minimal musical work which allows the words to stand to the fore, supplementing them with atmosphere and adding further variety and contrast to the album, notably ahead of the ragged riffery of ‘Omnipotent’.
The tranquil strings of ‘Desire’ provide the perfect bookend to stand opposite ‘Want’, and their synonymity is highlighted in this way. To want, to desire, something – something back – seems reasonable, should not need so much fight… but while there is the need to fight, Divide and Dissolve make protest music. It may not be protest music in the way many of us recognise it, but slogans and punk and folk are tired and worn, and on Systemic, Divide and Dissolve speak in their own strong and powerful way.
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Invada Records – 21st April 2023
Christopher Nosnibor
‘Eagerly-awaited’ and ‘hotly-anticipated’ are phrases which are often tossed about with abandon when it comes to albums, but Benefits’ debut really has had a lot of people on the edge of their seats for months, and it’s no wonder the limited vinyl and less limited CD sold out well ahead of the release.
Their rise has been truly meteoric, but if ever a band deserved to be catapulted from nowhere to selling out shows up and down the country, it’s Benefits, who’ve done it all by themselves and on their own terms, garnering rave live reviews and scoring interviews in the NME and The Guardian and, well, pretty much everywhere. They don’t only deserve it because of their DIY ethic: they deserve it because they’re an unassuming bunch of guys from the north of England (which in industry terms is an instant disadvantage), and moreover, they’re fucking incredible. And it’s not hyperbole to say that they are the voice of the revolution. It’s unprecedented for a band this sonically abrasive to rocket into a position of such widespread appreciation, and even more so when they’re not readily pigeonholed.
Attitudinally, they’re punk as fuck, but musically, not so much: while there are elements of hardcore in the shouted sociopolitical lyrics and frenetic drumming, there isn’t a guitar in sight, not anything that remotely sounds like one. They’re certainly not metal. And you can’t dance to their tunes – because ‘tunes’ is a bit of a stretch (although that’s no criticism). If their subject matter and modus operandi share some common ground with Sleaford Mods – disaffected, working class, ranty, sweary – they’re leagues apart stylistically. Whereas the Mods will joince and jockey and nab the listener with a battery of pithy one-liners, Benefits are an all-out assault, ever bar a sucker-punch of anger blasted home on a devastating wall of noise.
A fair few tracks here have previously been released as singles, although several previous singles, including the recent ‘Thump’ are notably absent to make room for previously unreleased songs, and the sequencing of the ten tracks which made the cut is spot on.
The first, ‘Marlboro Hundreds’, is a massive blast of percussion that grabs the listener by the throat with its immediate impact. Reject hate! Question everything! Success is subjective! The messages may be simple, but they’re essential, positive, and delivered with sincerity and all the fire that cuts through the bullshit and mediocrity. The grinding electronics take a back seat against the drumming, and the vocals are quite low in the mix, but with a clearly enunciated delivery and a crisp EQ they cut through with a penetrating sharpness that really bites.
The album takes a very sharp turn into darker, less accessible territories: ‘Empire’ is a dark, mangled mess of agonising noise, and defines one of the album’s key themes, namely of the dark terrain of patriotism and nationalism which defines and divides Brexit Britain, while warning of the dangers of passivity and blind acceptance of the echo-chamber of social media and the shit pumped out by the government and right-wing media outlets.
Lead single ‘Warhorse’ is the most overtly song-like song in the set. It’s raw punk with electronics, and the one that could legitimately be described as a cross between Sleaford Mods and IDLES, but with a raging hardcore punk delivery. The slouching dub of ‘Shit Britain’ offers quite different slant, spoken word rap groove.
‘What More Do You Want’ swipes at critics of ‘political correctness gone mad’ and the ‘anti-woke’ wankers and it minimal musical arrangement with stuttering percussion renders it almost spoken with an avant-jazz backing, before horrendous blasts of noise tear forth with such force as to threaten to annihilate the speakers. This is Benefits at their best and most unique.
‘Meat Teeth’ is sparse and plain fucking brutal as Hall rants and raves over a growing tide of distortion and feedback. The track packs so much fury that its impact is immense, especially in its tumultuous climax.
Arguably the definitive Benefits cut, ‘Flag’ incorporates rave elements to test through jingoism and nationalistic bullshit, taking down the kind of cunts who voted Brexit while owning a second home in Spain, the monarchy-loving casually-racist flag-shaggers who sup Carling and love an Indian while bemoaning all the ‘coloured’ doctors in hospitals and surgeries, and the Poles ‘coming over here and taking our jobs’ despite no-one else being willing to sweat it out behind the counter at Costa or pick strawberries for less than minimum wage. It’s the same duality of these so-called ‘patriots’ and past generations that provide the focus of ‘Traitors’ ‘We get the future you deserve’ Hall rages at the boomers who’ve sold out the subsequent generations for buy to let homes and destroying the planet for greed, share dividends, and skiing holidays. His voice cracks as he spits the words, the fury at this fucked-up mess. It’s powerful, and it really does occupy every inch of your being listening to this, because it ignites every nerve in our body to connect with such raw intensity.
‘Council Rust’ brings a more tranquil tone, but it’s not a calmness that comes from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel but from a sense of hopelesness, of feeling battered and bereft. Nails leaves you feeling drained, but uplifted. Yes, everything is fucking shit, but you are not alone: Benefits know, and articulate those tensing muscles and clenching fists and heart palpitations and moments where you feel as if you can’t quite breathe into incendiary sonic blasts. Benefits are without doubt the most essential band in (shit) Britain right now. And with Nails, they have, indeed, nailed it.
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Divide and Dissolve’s new and fourth album Systemic examines the systems that intrinsically bind us and calls for a system that facilitates life for everyone. It’s a message that fits with the band’s core intention: to make music that honours their ancestors and Indigenous land, to oppose white supremacy, and to work towards a future of Black and Indigenous liberation.
Saxophonist and guitarist Takiaya Reed comments, “This music is an acknowledgement of the dispossession that occurs due to colonial violence,” She continues, “The goal of the colonial project is to separate Indigenous people from their culture, their life force, their community and their traditions. The album is in direct opposition to this.”
Like its predecessor Gas Lit, Systemic was produced by Ruban Neilson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra and arrives on all formats through Invada on 30th June and is preceded by the lead single/video ‘Blood Quantum’ which calls into question the violent process of verification of Identity.
Watch the video here:
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Photo: Yatri Niehaus
The heavy multidimensional duo Divide and Dissolve share a remix of Gas Lit album track “Denial” by London born, U.S based artist BEARCAT.
“Denial (Bearcat remix)” appears on the Gas Lit remix EP release which is officially out today via Invada Records, and features the previously announced remixes from Chelsea Wolfe and Moor Mother – full details here.
DJ/producer and self-described “dancefloor therapist,” BEARCAT aims to permeate healing through music as she in turn heals herself throughout her practice, a lifelong mission as a survivor with complex trauma and ptsd. BEARCAT’s sound consists of uncompromising rhythm and bass blended with equal parts noise and chaos. For this remix of Divide and Dissolve’s “Denial” BEARCAT edited the original stems and built the rest of the song using kits from native instruments.
Listen here:
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Photo Credit: Jaimie Wdziekonski @sub_lation
Invada Records – 29th January 2021
On the strength of a brace of tumultuous single releases, anticipation for Divide and Dissolve’s upcoming album was pretty hot. And with Gas Lit, they’re positively on fire.
With the aim ‘to undermine and destroy the white supremacist colonial framework and to fight for Indigenous Sovereignty, Black and Indigenous Liberation, Water, Earth, and Indigenous land given back’ Divide and Dissolve wear their difference from so much of the scene with pride: they certainly don’t look like your average doom duo. But then, nor do they sound like it either.
They may only be two in number, but Takiaya Reed (saxophone, guitar, live effects/ (Black & Tsalagi [Cherokee]) and Sylvie Nehill (drums, live effects/ (Māori) incorporate an array of unconventional instrumental elements into their immense sound, most notably saxophone. But it certainly doesn’t really lighten the tone with some groovy jazz notes, or even some wilder free-jazz, either.
Granted, the opening bars of the first track, ‘Oblique’ are gentle, soothing, orchestral and with hints of neoclassical or soundtrack music even, but it’s simply a lure before the barrelling drone of low, overdriven guitars so distorted as to melt into a drone, propelled by a frenzy of thunderously heavy percussion. And in the background, brass so mournful as to sound sadder and more lonely than a solitary burial in the middle of the Sahara. It’s a bleak and desolate sound, and one that’s utterly compelling.
‘Prove It’ is pure density, a heavy drone guitar with a sound that’s thick and grainy flows like a mudslide. The blank monotone spoken word vocal on ‘Did You Have Something to Do With It?’ is detached, and disconnected as it speaks of dark thoughts and actions against a sparse, minimal backdrop. It’s eerie and ominous, and sounds more like a segment lifted from a documentary about a serial killer – and in the context of the album, it serves as an unsettling interlude, which provides brief respite sonically only to exchange the aural terror with something sociopathic and equally disturbing.
Seven-and-a-half-minute single cut ‘Denial’ hammers in hard with a yawning drone of guitar that sounds more like a churning earthwork, the drum beats like detonations, before tapering away to leave a haunting scene, the serpentine scales full of an ancient ant elusive mysticism. But it becomes increasingly scratchy and more decayed… and then ‘Far From Ideal’ bulldozes in, obliterating everything in its wake, before things get even heavier, darker, and murkier with the trudging sludge of ‘It’s Really Complicated’.
‘Mental Gymnastics’ is another short piece, and another one which evokes distant lands in ancient times, unknowable wisdom lost in the sands of time, before single release ‘We Are Really Worried About You’, grinds its way to the end on a tsunami of a riff, and it leaves you breathless.
It’s clear that Divide and Dissolve really grasp the power of dynamics, but also have a unique way of rendering those dynamics, not just in terms off the all-important volume changes, but in how they explore mood. More than this, they transcend conventions and standard doom tropes and incorporate myriad stylistic and cultural elements, and so do astoundingly naturally. For all the weight, there’s a bold majesty about Gas Lit that may be difficult to pinpoint but which permeates its very fabric. And for all of these reasons, Gas Lit feels different – and hits so incredibly hard.
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Gas Lit is the new album by the multidimensional duo Divide and Dissolve, incoming on Invada Records on 29th January, and produced by Ruban Neilson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra. The album is preceded today by the second single and powerful video “Denial” which encapsulates their message behind the music: to undermine and destroy the white supremacist colonial framework and to fight for Indigenous Sovereignty, Black and Indigenous Liberation, Water, Earth, and Indigenous land given back.
Divide and Dissolve’s mighty new single “Denial” is a potent blend of ominous and unsettling sax that blows wide open into colossal riffs for almost eight glorious minutes. The accompanying video was shot in Taupo, Aotearoa by notable indigenous music video director Amber Beaton at the end of the southern hemisphere’s winter.
The vibrant, unfolding colours and delicate personality of the flowers at the beginning of the film have the potential to be in contrast with the intro of the song, but it’s actually escorted by it perfectly. It’s further varied with the colossal boom signalling the arrival of the guitars and drums while visually we start to explore the thermal grumblings of the Taupo volcanic zone. We follow the Huka falls/Waikato awa (Waikato river) up stream to settle into Taupo-Nui-A-Tia moana (Lake Taupo) as the return of the sax lulls us gently after being nourished so generously by Divide and Dissolve’s signature gargantuan tone. Thanks are given to the local Iwi\tribe Ngāti Tūwharetoa, the rightful guardians of the whenua/land and to Rūaumoko the god of volcanoes, earthquakes and the seasons.
Watch ‘Denial’ here:
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Divide and Dissolve image by Billy Eyers
Aural Aggravation 