HIGH-VOLTAGE NEW SINGLE ‘THE HUNGRY CHILD’ FROM JIM GHEDI. CORONACH UNLEASHED BY HELLRIPPER

The omens were always there. When Jim Ghedi played in Hathersage, it was as a two-person set-up with Owen Spafford on fiddle in a 50-capacity venue. The songs were stripped down but in the gig review I scribbled that ‘Wasteland… could easily explode into sprawling, riotous dissonance with the wrong (right?) band behind it.’

Speculative wishes granted, peoples – The Hungry Child is that very thing: a cacophonous electrification of a harrowing tale.

It starts with fiddle-and-drone and downwards bend, like the Whole Lotta Love left-right speaker pan by way of a hulking wartime bomber, which sets the mood to bleak as Ghedi sings the tale of ‘the hungry child’, based on a German poem from the early 19th century.

It’s a lean start, musically – after the drone, it’s Ghedi’s voice and fiddle that leads us. But a storm soon brews as his no-bullshit band emerges to flesh out the sound into a marching doom shanty while strings and choir (?) shoot for transcendence in a Thee Silver Mt Zion way, switching from rigidity to shamanic chaos over a filthy bass grind.

Hearing Jim Ghedi and crew crank it up like this is pure joy, if that’s the right word for such a forlorn slab of downer folk. Sunshine music it is not, so save it for the greyest, most barren of wind-whipped days and steel your heart for the poem’s end. Sink into it right here.

On stage, The Hungry Child should be a beast so let’s hope Ghedi and crew play it when the UK tour kicks off at Hebden Bridge Trades Club this very week on Thursday 18th June. Me, I’ll be at The Strines Nightingale the day after. Cannot wait.

OK then, time for a different kind of grim: Hellripper.

If you don’t know, Hellripper is the almost comically OTT speed-thrash-black metal brainchild of one-man studio riot, James McBain. The latest album, Coronach, came out in March and it fully rips (sorry), just like its predecessors – but the maniacal Hellripper blueprint is evolving.

For this album, McBain has added bagpipes, vocal range, violin and even (no fckn way) piano (whaaaat?) to Hellripper’s hot-wired black-speed frenzy and they all enhance the vision without losing heat from the molten goatcult core. Title track Coronach – a 9-minute linear epic that cruises with mid-tempo anthemics, classic metal licks and furious pace injections – showcases a progressive musical narrative that rarely circles back to verse-chorus regularity. Hunderprest, meanwhile, shreds with riffage that’s Rust-in-Peace tight while Voivod-ian motifs chill the air a notch. Ferocious blastbeat action and riffy hooks are never far away.

Perhaps a bigger difference on this latest album is that McBain’s Scottish culture and folklore references get a higher profile. They’re dark and macabre, same as they ever were – witchery, vampires, sacrifice, body-snatching – and they’ve always informed his lyrics but here, they’re more often elevated to song titles like these (info cribbed from McBain’s own Coronach liner notes):

Coronach – an improvised song for the dead, traditionally played at funerals
Baobhan Sith – a female vampire of the forests of the Highlands
Mortercheyn – the disease spread by Nuckelavee, a demon from Orkney folklore

And:

Blakk Satanik Fvkkstorm – ?

Er…

Anyway, check Coronach for metallic extremes and high-speed feelgoods.

IS IT JUST ME OR…

…is there common ground between Jim Ghedi and Hellripper? Both dig into culture, place and people, both bring the past to the present, both forge a distinct aesthetic, and both are young enough to be at the vanguard of their scenes.

They should tour together.

No doubt this is a ridiculous and shallow observation from someone who knows nothing about their respective worlds, but can you imagine a co-headlining trek of caverns and caves in the Peaks and the Highlands??? That would be something else. Heavy folk dread and Celtic kult-metal mutation – yes please.

A few more entry-level words on Hellripper right here