When it comes to noisy punk and hardcore, Sweden has just as many noteworthy bands as the likes of Japan and other parts of Europe. Around the early 2010’s there was a surge of newcomers that each added their own take on things, whether it was the D-beat and heavy metal slant of 偏執症者 Paranoid or the sheer ear-splitting feedback and volume of Sex Dwarf. Sex Dwarf’s previous two full lengths came out in 2014 and 2018 respectively, with their debut Non-stop Erotic Noise Cabaret living up to its name thanks to just how abrasive and ear piercing its sound was. On their third album Påhittad Värld the group has switched things up a bit, opening with their longest track to date before returning to that familiar fast paced attack, but there’s still plenty of nuance to the material that helps it stand out.
Like 偏執症者 Paranoid, Sex Dwarf had one of the noisiest debuts I had heard from crust punk adjacent material in awhile and then has tweaked things on each successive release. I’d hardly call Påhittad Värld a clean and polished sounding album, as it’s still got a significant amount of feedback and you have to crank the volume up to really hear everything that’s going on, but compared to Non-stop Erotic Noise Cabaret it is a tad bit more approachable. It’s clear that the production has been tweaked to allow some of the riffs to stand out above the noisiness and considering that the title track shakes up Sex Dwarf’s formula that’s a positive. Coming in at six and a half minutes, “Påhittad Värld” kicks things off much slower than listeners might be expecting as it uses repetition and a slower, deliberate tempo in a way that has more of a rock ‘n roll feel and reframes the noisy layers into something completely different. The nine tracks that follow head back into territory that’s a bit more familiar, though Sex Dwarf does vary up their approach from song to song. Some go straight for the steamroll approach the whole way through while others utilize some brief build-ups and to refocus and hit even harder, and there are some more of the guitar freak-outs from the title track that pop up at certain points. At twenty minutes in total there are some blink and you’ll miss them type nuances to some of the material, but the amount of power and noisier edge drew me back regularly. The title track is just a bit too long in how it uses its repetition though which does disrupt the initial flow of the material, but when everything else is so heavy hitting that’s not a huge deal.
Sex Dwarf’s vocalist Per is slightly obscured by the noisiness of the recording, but crank things up a bit and you’ll hear his echo-laden screaming/yelling coming through with just as much intensity. Compared to some of the other crust punk and hardcore of this type that has distorted and almost metal adjacent vocals, Per keeps things rooted on the punk side of the spectrum with the tone being slightly cleaner. That doesn’t mean that things are any less intense though, as the ebb and flow on songs like “Slicka” make each line feel like a crashing wave hitting the listener and the pitch only gets more aggressive as the song reaches its peak.
Putting the slower, stretched out song at the very beginning does dull the impact a little, but Sex Dwarf has still returned with a bang. They’ve done some subtle tweaks to the production that retain the noisiness but make the individual riffs pop out more, and if you’re a fan of everything crust or Scandinavian hardcore/punk this is an album worth your time. Påhittad Värld is available from Armageddon Label and Children Of The Grave Records.
-Review by Chris Dahlberg