Post-metal icon Julie Christmas is back with her first solo record in 14 years, Ridiculous and Full of Blood, and despite her name, it isn’t a jolly one, writes Heidi Adam.
In-between her two solo releases, the former Made Out of Babies and Battle of Mice singer teamed up with Swedish post-metal paragons Cult of Luna on their astounding collaborative album Mariner in 2016. The band’s frontman Johannes Persson has joined her again as the guitarist for this new record, and their abrasive dynamic is unstoppable.
The album is unhinged and haunting, and Julie wastes no time establishing that when Not Enough opens the record with the eerie shrills of Johannes’ guitar and Christmas’ powerful shrieks ricocheting off the walls, setting a demented atmosphere which is spread across the album.
Supernatural is as grand as the record gets – the verses exude a grungelike quality with a rumbling bass tone courtesy of KEN Mode’s Andrew Schneider, before erupting into a volcanic chorus of Julie’s powerful yells combined with a wailing guitar.
Throughout the album, Julie often sounds like Björk’s evil twin, and her voice is almost identical to the Icelandic singer on The Ash in both her soft and aggressive performances.
The stabbing grooves of Thin Skin linger on the brink of nu-metal with Christmas sounding like a 5-year-old child who has been possessed by demons, and its 7/4 breakdown towards the end is the adrenaline-pumping cherry on top.
The first half of the album is promisingly strong. The second half? Not so much. Tracks such as Silver Dollars and The Lighthouse – although they’re not bad – feel slightly empty in comparison to the chaos ensued in the first five songs.
At its most deranged, Blast is a short and not-at-all sweet track where the low, repetitive chants of “Kill” are intertwined with childlike vocables in the distance, alongside panic chords across the span of just under two minutes.
The record closes with the dramatically sombre tune Seven Days in which Julie roars in distress: “There’s just no man upstairs / There’s no God or heaven” over the sound of a church organ, which feels like the correct way to round up a collection of chaotically enraged belters.
As her 50s start to creep up behind her, Julie Christmas still has it, and her voice remains robust as ever. Ridiculous and Full of Blood is a must-listen for anyone craving dark and sludgy post-metal frothing with discomfort.