Amidst the maelstrom of post-punk rage on Benefits’ 2023 breakout debut album Nails, there were hints of something more nuanced and considered, danceable even. The surprise beat of standout track ‘Flag’ was noticeable in a live setting for getting the band’s audience nodding their heads while the long drum-less drone outro of ‘Council Rust’ was an unexpected chance for the listener to reflect and take stock on one of the most brutal and dystopian albums of recent years.
And the band themselves, it seems. Now stripped back to a duo, after a revolving door policy on drummers in the past (through no fault of their own we might add), Benefits have done the logical thing and ditched the drummer completely, and taking their radgie polemic in a bold new direction, certainly if new track ‘Land of the Tyrants’ (Invada Records) is anything to go by.
Featuring Zera Tønin (one half of Arch Femmesis) on guest vocals ‘Land of the Tyrants’ strips the visceral wall of white noise and socially aware sonic terror back to something, well, paradoxically euphoric. The leap, stylistically at least, is akin to that from the first to second Streets albums (think ‘Blinded By The Lights’ with a regional accent and a dangerous political bent). Risky, ambitious, subversive.
There may be comparisons to Underworld but ‘Land of the Tyrants’ influences lie even deeper in the primordial soup of early Detroit techno with singer Kingsley Hall’s opining oddly relaxed over a steady, if bastardised, disco beat as the track builds into a looping, toe-tapping discourse on class culture. Zera’s primal scream at 2-minutes 20-seconds ensures a sense of uneasy agitation remains while the accompanying video (directed by Teesside’s John Kirkbride) is a further extension of the Benefits creative ethos landing somewhere between Arctic Monkey’s ‘When The Sun Goes Down’ and Get Carter in the dark corner of the car park.
Benefits UK tour kicks off on October 5th at The Parrish in Huddersfield.
