Listen: The Meads Of Asphodel, So Weird

Are you in the mood to have an instant opinion? Well, check out The Meads Of Asphodel. They get off on the wrong foot via album titles The Murder Of Jesus The Jew and Sonderkommando, but that’s just the start of their weirdness. Take their new split, Taste The Divine Wrath (below): Its “rousing” intro theme preps you to stay close to the “skip” button, but then the first real song is awesome. Titled “Chidiock Tichborne,” it draws a fascinating outline. But this rollercoaster dips violently via “You’ve Got The Hate,” or as we’ve been calling it “Awkward pop song with blast beats and open mic vocals.” Weird!!

While you’re still kinda blinking your eyes from that, the next track has morphed from a speech to a medieval rap, like Christian Bale’s uncle practicing dialogue from Game Of Thrones. But another sharp turn arrives in the jam’s second half, where The Meads’ guitars are profoundly beautiful. This shit is all over the place. Then (!), its next song sounds merely like Hate Eternal’s least cooperative deep cut — until its final lyric: “[spoken] Fuck the glory of God and let the Vatican bitches burn in hell.” Sigh. The way “bitches” is spoken, it doesn’t vibe “harlots” but instead something overheard in a tanning salon. Vatican bit-chez! It’s like you’re giggling and headbanging, weirdest shit ever. Finally your mind is blown again cuz the next track sounds like Seth Putnam with Rosie from The Jetsons, but that turns out to be the other band on the split, Tjolgtjar. And how can we “taste” a “wrath”??

The Meads Of Asphodel/Tjolgtjar split Taste The Divine Wrath came out Tuesday via Eternal Death. Get it here and here.