I recently got some outreach from Sweden’s Novoton label regarding a new release, out today, from the group Avfall and carrying the title “Weltschmerz.” I was delighted to find that this band were strongly following a boldly multifaceted approach in putting their songs across. The loaded title potentially set me up for some punishing, angst-ridden, navel gazing. However, once I sampled the music, I was instead served songs which were brimming with energy, fire, and dynamism. This was much more than gray music to slit wrists by and they had quickly won me over with their fighting spirit and wild sense of eclecticism.

If anything, “Weltschmerz” almost sounded like a compilation album of European bands who filtered their concerns about the terrible state of the world through a well-developed sense of Post-Punk ethos which bypassed more common touchstones such as John McGeoch’s guitar tone, and pivoted instead towards the less likely, but equally welcome approach of Wire or Killing Joke.

Avfall: Weltschmerz – SE – CD [2025]

1. Biologismus Fatale 03:21
2. Vielleicht, wie ein Speer 03:55
3. The Hate 03:11
4. Just Show Me the Way 04:47
5. [Knarkögon] 00:46
6. La Marchesa 03:03
7. The Mills 05:23
8. With the Glowing Wind 03:09
9. Natten 04:31
10. Discharged 02:52
11. I Think it’s Name is Life 03:42
12. Mental Anhalt: 1921 03:12
13. Se Taire 06:22

From the very beginning of “Biologismus Fatale,” the breakneck double time tempo of the drums and bass with shards of guitar buttressing the dour, massed vocal attack. The choral chant of “let yourselves go…GO!” Offered the fire of resistance in an appealing way. And at 3:20, the band were not about to waste a second of our time. This was music that went for the throat and didn’t mince words.

Admirably, the band sounded like a completely different entity on the second track. The Germanic “Veilleicht, wie en Speer.” The autumnal vibe of the song was awash in an appealing, guitar soaked, melancholy where at the halfway point the sequencers joined in with their six-stringed brethren to transform the vibe of the song to something quite different. By the time of the song’s climax, the guitars had dropped out completely and left us with pure motorik synth energy to deposit us at a radically different place from our starting point! Avfall we’re obviously not content to play the game safe and predictably.

It was only at the point of track three’s, “The Hate,” that they were content to relax into some good old fashioned, angst rock. The hypnotic drum pattern of guest drummer Sakarias Olsson coiled its energy inward as the group once more sung in English as the repetitive meter of the drums and lyrics set the pace for the pensive nature of the tune. I’d have been happy to have heard another two minutes of this one for some real Krautrock energy, but the band deferred, as ever, towards brevity here.

“Just Show Me The Way” proffered pulsating synth loops up front to hook our ears before building an edifice of phased guitars and dance rhythms that adroitly balanced synthetic and traditional instrumentation. The break where the synth loops ruled the song for a bar or two painted this song as one aimed at a club space. Yet the phased guitars fearlessly added Rock texture while the furious drum machine tattoos in the climax laughed at Rock’s conventions.

“La Marchesa” was a warm, anthemic song built on a sturdy drum machine beat overlaid with a chord sequence of densely arranged synths that imparted hope to the listener. While the foreboding opening chords and sound bites to “The Mills” did the opposite. What transpired was completely unexpected as the track delved into a drum + bass style that I surely didn’t see coming. And I found the vocals to be strongly redolent of the phrasing of Wire’s Bruce Gilbert. The results were certainly electric! And the distorted bass overloads and squelches of ragged synth sound contrasted mightily with the frantic, brassy hi-hats.

The gentle melancholy of the pensive “Natten” relinquished the energy levels here for the closest the album came to attaining a chanson vibe. The stately melody coaxed a world weary, European vibe to the fore while the coda suggested an entropic finality to it all.

The material drumbeat of “Discharged” brought yet another radical mood shift to our ears before diving deep into a bludgeoning cacophony of distorted bass [and everything else] riffs and vocals at thrash tempo! It all ended by 2:35 with a coda of sound bites to bring us back down to earth. Was there no end to the inventiveness that Avfall were willing to explore?

The elegiac “Mental Anhalt: 1921” answered that rhetorical question with piano and swelling string patches. And the gorgeous melancholy of “Se Taire” brought this album’s journey to a cinematic closure as the chorus of drones nearly obliterated the song before receding into the shadows at the end of this suitably expansive 6:21 closure to the typically economical album.

As befitted its title, this was an album packed with emotional  content; some bruising, some despairing, others uplifting. But all of them addressing the theme embedded in the album’s honest name. I’ve been known to champion an eclectic approach as it’s a trait I admire, but I can’t recall an album that trafficked more recklessly and fearlessly with whatever disparate vibes that the group at hand were interested in exploring in each moment than this one.  And it was all down to Segerstedt and Söderberg who played everything here except for the live drums by Olsson on four tracks and a guest vocal/lyric by Emma Lundenmark on “The Hate.”

This is far from a fun or carefree album but it’s one you’ll more than respect in the long run. Now I need to investigate their debut recording, “Mental Preparation” from 2017, to see from whence they came as we await their next opus. Meanwhile CDs for 100 SEK/$10.70/£7.89 await inquisitive ears at their Bandcamp store with 24/48 downloads available for 50 SEK/$5.35/£3.94. I can vouch that the results are worth much more than such modest prices, so as ever, don’t forget to top up your purchase! DJs hit that button!

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