Album review: Maggot Heart – HUNGER

Linnéa Olsson’s name has been spottable in the underground for a decade or so now, first as a member of occult-rock outfit The Oath, and then as guitarist in Grave Pleasures, adding her beguiling and peculiar sense of melody to their second album, Dreamcrash. It’s as singer and guitarist with Berlin’s Maggot Heart, though, where she has properly flourished.

Most visibly rooted in a similar place to The Stooges, Killing Joke, Joy Division and ’80s post-punk, listening to third album HUNGER, it’s not long before a whole world more opens up, where street rock’n’roll, cold, wintry punk, art noise and more combine to make something far fresher and more intriguing than initial touchstones often amount to.

This Shadow’s thrusting, insistent beat and the spiky Nil By Mouth are superb examples of post-punk cool, but it’s in moments like excellently named opener Scandinavian Hunger, with its hanging, doomy chords and haunting atmosphere, or when a brass accompaniment sees LBD out of the gates that Maggot Heart properly begin to flex their more interesting muscles. Then there’s the almost jazzy (but still scruffy) drums and weird surf guitar-ish melodies that push Looking Back At You forward, and the way six-minute closer Parasite nihilistically collapses in on itself in a load of reverb and feedback. Throughout, Linnéa’s vocals are a law unto themself, particularly on Archer, where they sit over delicate but angry piano to create a peculiarly fragile, tense atmosphere.

A band with clear fingerprints from their influences, while also sounding like completely their own thing, Maggot Heart have created something killer here. With HUNGER, you won’t be left wanting.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Siouxsie And The Banshees, Henrik Palm, Grave Pleasures

HUNGER is released on September 29 via Svart