THE DEVIL'S MOUTH Vol. 184: a conversation with Ben Hutcherson (Khemmis)

It’s always a pleasure to welcome Ben back at the show. It’s been a while since he went through our sacrosanct Ten Rounds challenge, and he also participated in the special stuff we did for episode #100 of this thing. He hasn’t been back more often simply because Khemmis did take their own sweet time to come up with the successor to 2021’s ‘Deceiver’. However, with this band, there is always the certainty that no matter how long you’ll have to wait, it will be fucking worth it, and the new self-titled album, their fifth already, fully adheres to that rule. With such a rich record, it can be difficult to truly dive into all the emotion, hard work and creative process that led to its final form, but that’s why we love having Ben over, because he is eloquent, smart and funny enough to tell us absolutely all about it in the most entertaining way possible.

After a career of almost 40 years, ever since joining Napalm Death in 1987, Shane still has a lot to say - including with a brand new solo album.

There Were Wires are back! New album ‘Vessel’, their first after 2003' 'Somnambulists' and a long absence period, was announced a couple of months ago, it’ll be out on June 26th, and you can already listen to two of the ten songs. Without going too much into it, because we will be revisiting it properly in due time, I can tell you that regardless of your expectations, it will be better than that. It’s a proper monster of a record that will hopefully not only gather round all the old dudes who were around 25 years ago, but also get them an army of new fans, hungry for proper, gritty, honest music. Colossal, grief-ridden, cathartic music like we desperately need these days. Check out the really cool chat we had with vocalist Jaime Mason and guitarist Thomas Moses about not only ‘Vessel’, but what lead up to it, and what’s going to happen after that. And everything else in between.

Steve Austin of Today Is The Day has finally gone ahead with his long-awaited outlaw country project, of course we had to go talk to him about it!

It’s been a long road for dälek, formed in 1998 already (despite a short hiatus in the 2010s), and central figure Will “MC dälek” Brooks is showing no signs of letting up the fight. ‘Brilliance Of A Falling Moon’, out since late March on Ipecac Recordings, is their tenth full-length album, a nice and full round number, which the band has been playing in its entirety (plus a few choice cuts from the past) in their latest European dates - which will continue to happen over the next few weeks, including a performance at Roadburn Festival. The album is of course awesome, reinforcing their customary political and social commentary even more, understandable given the current landscape, while laying down the sickest rhymes and the heaviest, most punishing grooves. Aside from that, we also talked about all the extra-dälek stuff Will is and has been up to, as well as looking back upon a long and fruitful career and its evolution so far. Tune in now to hear everything!

Karin Park has been pushing away at the boundaries of pop/synth/electronic/industrial/(we could go on) music for quite a while, and is now preparing to enter a particularly fascinating cycle in her discography. On May 8th, she will release the ‘EVO’ EP, via Size Records, and this EVO is but the start of a complete… EVOLUTION. We stand on the edge of a forthcoming planned trilogy, the full musical contours of which are still being deliberately designed, as the whole point of this exercise is to, ahem, evolve with each step of the greater work. In very broad strokes, and all of it based on the info she kindly offered us during this episode, that’s the current and very exciting point in which Karin’s music is at. Wanna know more? Cool, because there’s a whole lot more to know. Just tune into our chat and away you go.

Not to toot our own horn or whatever, but we were one of the first to call it - Volores are the real deal. So we said, when Shelby and Nathen were on the podcast for the first time (episode #117, time flies!), around the release of the first album, and now we reiterate, even more fiercely, after having lived with the amazing sophomore effort ‘Shores Of Scorpio’ for a while and still being totally addicted to it. We already went through the album in more detail just last week, so no need to keep repeating ourselves, but we purposefully left out of that text the whole background that led to it. Turns out Shelby suffered through a frankly massive upheaval in her personal life in the past couple of years, a story that seems straight out of some award-winning HBO family drama, and the whole concept - that she was brave and bold enough to talk about at length with us - of ‘Shores Of Scorpio’ is related to those events.It’s always a pleasure to sit down with Shelby and Nathen. Tune in now to listen to the whole chat.

In just a few days, the new The Magus album, 'Daemonosophia', will be available, and we’re in for a real treat. The Magus is, of course, the artist formerly known as Magus Wampyr Daoloth, a crucial pioneer of the Greek black metal scene, one of the most important in the whole movement. He was the figurehead for the legendary Necromantia for over three decades, as well as a prominent participant in kickass projects like N.A.O.S., Diabolos Rising, Raism, Thou Art Lord or Yoth Iria (not to mention a stint in the Rotting Christ lineup). So when this man has something to say, we damn well sit down and listen. That we did, roughly five years ago, when he was writing the final chapter of Necromantia and kindly took our Ten Songs challenge, and now he returns to the podcast to tell us all about ‘Daemonosophia’ - and there is a lot to tell. Tune in now!

Been a long time coming, this one - I’ve been an admirer of this fine gentleman for a long time, over twenty years in fact, ever since I heard him scream on the self-titled Coliseum debut. Fotocrime obviously didn’t even exist at the time (‘Principle Of Pain’ dates from 2018), and the four brilliant albums - now five - Ryan’s made with this band have only reinforced the admiration. So now that the next Fotocrime album has been announced, a savage beauty called ‘Security’, it was the perfect excuse to finally sit down with the great man for a chat.Apart from telling us all about ‘Security’, its origins, intentions, and how it fits the whole Fotocrime canon, Ryan also told us all about his plans for the rest of 2026, which despite being “a Fotocrime year”, will also see him active in Aon Brasi, Mirrorless and the amazing return of Louisville cult favourites Phantom Family Halo. And Coliseum? Well, maybe. Go listen to the chat, come on.

News just broke that Eugene is tackling some 20th century Great American Songbook standards on a forthcoming album, so we naturally rang him up, plus producer John Getze, to know more about the EUGENE SINGS! project.