It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since I last covered Norwegian outfit Damokles, as they've been busy. Since that time, "Ms. Misanthropy" marks single and music video #5 for the project—which features Gøran Karlsvik (This Sect, Contrarian, etc.) on vocals alongside members who have been involved with Dunderbeist and No Life Orchestra, to name but a few. As before, the group's self-appointed tagline of "punk rock lifers making emo noise" only reveals a portion of the truth...
It never really matters, but I don't quite know what I'd call this. The core riff has a memorably straightforward groove that grabs me more directly than some of the band's prior output, though, that's for sure. Then you've got little twists of all of your post-rock/punk/hardcore types of influences (to varying degrees of perceptibility) swirling around with a caustic indie edge, and even some lightly metal-tinged lead melodies. Like the music, assorted vocal techniques sort of rise and fall around the unavoidably rockin' catchiness of that central pulse, and that hook just sort of seals the deal in terms of "Ms. Misanthropy" being one of my favorite Damokles compositions to date.
If you're like me and have one hell of a tough time keeping up with bands that release a song at a time, have no fear, because Damokles has plans to compile all of their original singles and more onto a 10-track full-length at some point during 2021. Until then, pick through an array of tunes and visual accompaniments via Bandcamp, Spotify, or YouTube.
