A Place to Bury Strangers
Rare and Deadly
Dedstrange
Approach Rare and Deadly with at least some degree of caution. Loudly exploding from the vaults of edgy noise-rock punishers A Place to Bury Strangers, this assemblage of orphaned ephemera gathered from the years 2015-2025 chooses surreal violence above all else, raiding Oliver Ackermann’s closets to rummage through the stuff previously deemed unfit for public consumption or simply abandoned according to the whims of its creators.
Released in multiple formats, each one carrying a different payload, the varied versions of Rare and Deadly have their own unique track-listings, juggling lost B-sides, demos, and unfinished, unhinged experiments often touched with brilliant madness, plus scraps of ideas that were never fully fleshed out. The conflicting testimony they present then muddies the waters somewhat, but the separate, ever-evolving cases for Rare and Deadly are utterly compelling, shedding light on how A Place to Bury Strangers weaves its dissonant spells, even when hitting a wall or veering wildly off path.
That’s when things get interesting, though, as A Place to Bury Strangers accelerates through intersections of blustery shoegazer storms, dark electronica, heady psychedelia, and blistering, distorted no wave/new wave crashes, dreamily and lyrically confronting harsh realities with nightmarishly harsher sounds, like those attacking the art-damaged delirium of “Crash” from every conceivable clashing, head-spinning, chaotic angle. It lives up to its billing, and so does the ridiculously catchy, driving “Deranged,” screeching noise skittering over fast metallic beats and a deadpan monologue in shuddering, punk-rock ecstasy. More off kilter and disjointed, “Dead Inside” strikes a similar bargain.
Fuzzy and freaky, swerving all over the road, the discordant “On the Wire” hammers away, squealing and shrieking as its smashes into guardrails, before everything stops and a calm clearing opens unexpectedly. Paint-peeling episodes of vicious, snarling power-violence are especially raw on Rare and Deadly, with the distorted, propulsive cacophony of “Everyone’s the Same” setting a breathless pace, its fury matched by the searing, ear-splitting clangor of “Energy.” Early Jesus and the Mary Chain transmissions whipped up quite a nasty racket, too, but with a sugary pop heart, and A Place to Bury Strangers artfully merges those competing interests in “Acid Rain” and “Do It All Again.”
If Rare and Deadly were to warn of half-formed ideas and disposable, directionless mutations right on the label, reactions might range from outright hostility to utter indifference, but don’t believe the lack of hype. Almost every bit of it bristles with deliciously ominous, blazing urgency and nervy immediacy, and there is terrifying beauty underneath all the trashy turbulence, with A Place to Bury Strangers occupying liminal spaces and spraying the walls with feedback-laced graffiti. Moody pieces like “Out of Place,” “Heartless,” and even the dead-eyed “Hatred Grows” effectively connect the immersive, darkwave dots between Joy Division’s bleak anxiety, Depeche Mode’s industrial, black celebrations and Ceremony’s extreme squalls.
The stick-like rhythmic lashings will continue until morale improves.
