THE DEVIL'S MOUTH Vol. 178: a conversation with Will Brooks (dälek)

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.

After a long hiatus, Jesse Sykes has fortunately overcome a rather dark period in her life and returned to music, with her band Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter's new album 'Forever, I've Been Being Born' emerging as a clear highlight of 2025. A masterpiece of ghostly, evocative folk, it will lead you into the woods with it and leave you lost in there forever. This chat with Jesse was more or less the human conversation version of her music. She was warm, humble, thoughtful and also remarkably honest in the way she recalled some of the tougher times of the last decade, and the not always pretty events that she used to motivate herself to climb out of them - and, in the end, how this quiet, soulful piece of music that is the new record is indeed a distillation of all of those things, and more besides.Tune in now, this is a special one.

How big can stickers be, on album covers? Because if this new band, Master’s Ashes, decide to bring out all the awesome bands their members will be in, the actual artwork might be completely covered. Straight up, we have Afzaal himself, our guest, the guitarist and songwriter for the absolutely legendary Crisis, which should be enough to already make you sit up and take notice. He comes armed with Eric Forrest, Dan Kaufman, Fred Waring, Jeff Golden and Katie Crimson, a goddamn amazing cast.On this chat with the big man we get the lowdown on everything there is to know about Master’s Ashes for now, of course, but also some precious memories and insights about his past in Crisis - including how and why that frankly revolutionary band was cast aside by many people in a close-minded, conservative scene -, and several stories from his many years spent paying his dues in the underground, like the beautiful friendship he struck with Piggy from Voivod among others.

Viva Sounds is one of the most exciting events happening in Europe, equally welcoming regardless of your genre preferences or depth of knowledge. Are you more into more metal stuff and you know zero bands on the bill? That’s fine, I can guarantee you’ll have a great time and come back with a bunch of new favourites. You an open-minded indie explorer and a lot of these bands are already familiar? That’s great too, this time you might be able to watch them play on a boat, or a tram, or a tiny cafe, or between racks of CDs in a record store. You a bit tired of live music? Come anyway, and stay for the conferences where likeminded industry veterans will maybe offer you a new perspective on stuff and you might end the weekend holding up beers watching a new band at the Pustervik. But don’t take it just from us. We got on a call with Gustav Påhlsson and Mattias Tell, the two main guys behind it all, who told us all about not only this edition, but all of the secrets that happen behind the scenes at an event like this. And by “like this”, we mean a company of two people dealing with 90 bands spread over seventeen stages in three days.

Last time we hung out with Sivert Høyem (episode #129), aside from his extraordinary ten picks of songs that we nerded out about, we were excited about his first solo album in a few years (the last had been 2016’s ‘Lioness’, of course with the Madrugada reunion album+shows in the middle of that period), the wonderful ‘On An Island’, which was about to be released. That chat wasn’t that long ago - it was the first episode of 2024, in fact - but since then a lot has happened in Sivertland. Not only have we learned to live with that impactful record as if it became a part of our blood, but Sivert has shot off a looser, more rock’n’roll kind of effort early in 2025 too, called ‘Dancing Headlights’. Now that he is about to embark on a few important shows, including a couple of acoustic, intimate concerts in Portugal, followed by a bunch of Autumnal Norwegian dates, and a bigger European tour to follow early in 2026, we thought it would be a great time to sit down with the owner of the golden voice yet again.We’re very glad we did - from the hindsight of the perspectives on ‘On An Island’, to all the stories behind ‘Dancing Headlights’, not to mention a few revelations (the metalhead in me is way too excited about Sivert’s yearning for “violent” music and wanting to do something exploring “black metal connections”) and some hints about future projects, it really was a cool, relaxed conversation. Thank you Sivert for your presence on our show once more - bring on the live music now!