It has always struck me as bizarre that the concept of ‘Rewilding’ should be a controversial one. Surely as we go deeper into the climate emergency it is something that should be embraced. One of the more interesting aspects of the 2020 lockdown was the speed in which nature started to take over again… animals strayed into cities and otherwise barren areas became verdant once more. This, however, was a temporary phenomenon as we got back to trying to hold back nature…

This was the backdrop to the making of this new Dead Sea Apes album, which had taken three years to see this light of day… it is a set which not only reflects the importance of rewilding the earth, but is also something of a rewilding for the band itself… The thing is with a Dead Sea Apes album is that you never quite know what you are going to get as even a rudimentary glance through the band’s back catalogue would suggest… so each one has to be approached with an open mind. On this occasion I was not immediately taken with what I heard, at least at a deeper level… there were a few riffs that hit me straight away… but it didn’t wow me from the outset.

It took me quite a few listens to think why this might be, but I think that I have got there. Most of the six tracks on offer here feel so fully formed that I felt that I had heard them before… I don’t mean that they were derivative in some way, but rather that they are such huge slabs of rock (rawk), that my mind somehow skipped through the usual inquisitive stage and straight to the ‘established listen’ stage (this makes sense to me, I hope it does to you)… and so it was only after a few listens that I consciously went back to hear the album more intently.

Nowhere is this more the case than with the opener ‘Denialist’ which explodes into chaos from the outset before settling into a massive doom-laden riff… the heaviness of which completely threw me the first couple of times I listened to it… now I’m there though I can only marvel at some of the guitar work here… this is well and truly ‘power-trio’ territory with the bass and drums forming a wall against which the guitar casts its shadows both powerfully and deftly… then just after four minutes you get what for me is that signature Dead Sea Apes sound… a call back to earlier albums… that guitar-alarm that sounds like a warning for history and the future simultaneously… it’s only there for a moment before the massive riff takes the track home…. and we are on our way…

The huge sound continues with ‘Parasite Rex’… the bass reaching deep into the earth and the drums beating out something that feels very fundamental… this feels like a return to the very soil of rock music… a re-growth from ground zero that slowly but surely building into a megalith of sound which expands… but as it does gains nuance and meaning… both solid and exceptional at the same time…

After those two leviathan tracks ‘The Sleep Room’ is both calmer and more disturbing… it’s certainly atmospheric… reminiscent of journeys through dark and dank woods full of hanging vines… it is certainly a track that gives off a nightmarish vibe, and perhaps the most recognisably ‘Dead Sea Apes’ track here… it’s that signature guitar again… this time more in evidence throughout… as the track progresses the threat seems to become greater…. without any real resolution at the end… and nor should there be…

…because the listener is plunged straight into ‘Truther’… which is a mad cacophony of sound from the outset… possibly the fastest track I remember from the band. The alarm bells are really ringing now as we feel ourselves plummeting towards some sort of abyss… you sense that the warning signs are there but the momentum is inexorable… and resistance futile. From a musical point of view it’s an absolute banger!

After that we find ourselves in the disorientation of the title track…. with its maze-like structure that seems intent on preventing us from focussing on one particular point… there’s a dissonance to it which every time you feel as if you’ve found the beat it throws you off again…

…which continues with the final track ‘Dead Zone… here you begin to realise that everything on this album has been meticulously placed… nothing has happened here by chance… beneath the rewilding of the sound is a deliberate plan which has been delivered to the note with this album. This, I think, is why it took me a few listens… and like the other sort of rewilding once you get past the seeming chaos of wild growth you get to see the fundamental ecosystem beneath it… creating a climate for nature to flourish… the sort of growth that is at odds with prevalent economic models… and that is perhaps why the end of ‘Dead Zone’ sounds triumphant… of returning to nature what was its in the first place…

Either way this up there with the best Dead Sea Apes albums for me… and while I was slow to get there it has grown on me… from my first instincts that this was something I had heard before to something I very much want to hear again and again… on the surface this is quite a brutal and unforgiving album… but once you look inside it there is a complexity, a beauty and a nuance which is both irresistible and inexorable.

‘Rewilding is released by Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube, copies are also available direct from the band here at time of writing.

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