Way back in the beginning of 2024, we posted the first single from Danish screamo band Demersal‘s upcoming self-titled album. That album is now coming out tomorrow (Friday, May 10), and we’re currently premiering an early full stream along with a track-by-track breakdown from the band.
If you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into with this LP, the delicate acoustic guitars and hushed clean vocals of opening track “Flakkende Som Tusinde Lys” would not have you thinking it was a screamo LP. But, just seconds after that song’s final note, Demersal come roaring in with the metallic riffage and throat-shredding screams of “Bedrager.” The album is rooted in the grand, towering style of screamo that Europe tends to be best known for, and it incorporates everything from black metal to ambient post-rock to horns to electronics, all while tackling topics that range from depression to capitalism to the “hyper digital society” we live in to having some glimmer of hope in this fucked up world. It’s an intense, impactful LP, and I highly recommend checking it out if you’re into heavy music in any capacity.
Listen and read the band’s track-by-track breakdown…
“Flakkende Som Tusinde Lys”
Viktor Ravn (guitar, vocals):
This is probably the last thing we wrote for the album. We didn’t want to start out the album with a fast aggressive song, as we have been doing that on all of our other releases. So we decided to do the complete opposite. I write a lot of DIY singer-songwriter music outside of Demersal, so it felt very natural for me to incorporate some of that into the sound of Demersal. The song is based on the outro chords of the next song, “Bedrager”.
“Bedrager”
Viktor:
I had this demo on my computer for a very long time, but kept changing the riffs and the structure. I basically tried to incorporate as many riffs and ideas as possible into a very short amount of time while still trying to make it sound like one song. This song is mainly about depression. Kinda doubting that you will ever really be able to love anyone. Like you are just fooling everyone.
“Lys i Natten”
Jonas Maigaard (guitar, backing vocals):
I listen to a lot of techno, and I remember having “rediscovered” DnB music through replaying the older Devil May Cry games. I normally never listen to “electronica meets metal” kinda music, but I was inspired by the DnB aspect for the first part of the song.
“Something”
Jonas:
I was very inspired by Envy, for the intro of this song. I remember listening to them all the time when I wrote this song, and wanted to incorporate some of that somber and clean harmonizing guitar ideas.
I always love incorporating different instruments and elements into my songwriting. I wrote this outro for a very long time ago, but I rediscovered it while I was looking through my old Ableton Live projects and found this gem. I hadn’t used it for anything for at least 2 years, and there it was. I had to use it for “Something”
Viktor:
I tried to personify nature and climate change as a big mysterious entity that is always lurking in the shadows of our lives, and got really stoked on the idea of having a somewhat black metal-ish vocal thing going on in the intro.
“Will Never Shows”
Viktor:
I think I wrote this song in like an hour or so. Everything came pretty naturally, and I loved it right away. Best case scenario.
“Kunsten at slå tiden ihjel”
Sebastian Greis Andersen (bass, backing vocals):
The song structure was inspired by the song * by La Quiete with a somewhat chaotic first part and a more melodic/melancholic second part. The song is about procrastination, and the frustration of letting small things/hurdles take too much time and energy away from doing what is most important to you.
“Androide identiteter”
Sebastian:
This song was written quite fast. Before I showed the song to Demersal, I experimented with different ideas for parts in the song and the overall song structure, but I always went back to the original idea. I guess it just felt right. The song is about feeling lost in a hyper digital society, but also about resisting to take part in a technological development without much consciousness.
“Vakuum”
Sebastian:
“Vakuum” was an attempt to write a song where the different parts could “breathe” a bit more than on our other songs. The song consists of two parts – beginning and ending with the same chords. The lyrics are linked quite directly to this song structure with a before and after revolving around recovering connection with a loved one.
“Selvhjælp”
Viktor:
This song feels a lot like a protest song to me. I was trying to write something with a lot of tension and with a somewhat more straightforward energy than some of the other more chaotic songs we have on the record. This song is about the expectations you sometimes meet in modern hyper digital and capitalistic societies. I think one is often told to act like a strong individual: You should be able to stand up for yourself and your own values and all that stuff. I think people tend to forget that it is much more valuable to stand up for each other and to find love in communities rather than just to stand up for yourself.
“Be kind”
Sebastian:
This song was written quite a long time ago, but I was not sure how it would fit in Demersal. I believe it was one of the last songs we rehearsed for the album, but when we first started playing it, I think we all felt that it was a right fit.
“Det Mindste Ingenting”
Viktor:
Emil [Vilmar Lake], our drummer, wrote the first ideas for this song. I asked him to send me some isolated drum ideas, and then I wrote riffs on top of that. It was a very fun experience for us to write that way. The song ended up with kinda the same rhythmic pattern playing through most of the song.
“Som et barn mod dit bryst”
Jonas:
I am big time into emo anthems, so I tried writing something that was a bit cheesy and over the top. At first we joked about making a techno outro, but then we tried it out and it just worked! When Viktor added the idea about the huge screaming choir with all of our friends from the scene, it all became something much bigger. So many ideas and so many elements, I didn’t even mention the trumpet appearing at the end. Somehow it just works. I hold this song dear to my heart.
Viktor:
I was really trying to sum up all of the themes from the entire record on the lyrics for this one and it wasn’t easy. But it ended up being a very heartwarming and loving song about care and fragileness. It basically says: “yes, the world is fucked and there is not a lot of hope left for a bright future, but we have each other and we love each other, and that is enough”.