HEATHE – Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom
Release Date: 3rd October 2025
Label: Empty Tape / Virkelighedsfjern
Bandcamp
Genre: Industrial, Experimental, Free Jazz, Drone, Live Electronica, Post-Hardcore, Noise.
FFO: Fuck Buttons, Blanck Mass, Amenra, Raketkanon, Heisa.
Review By: John Newlands
Managing to fit the square peg into the round hole, is no easy feat. Many try and many fail, yet Danish band Heathe manage to do just that. What shouldn’t, on paper, work together in this instance does. The band manage to create something on Control Your Heart’s Desire for Freedom that few other acts manage to do.
When I started listening to the available tracks on Bandcamp, I liken it to my first time ever stumbling onto Amenra on YouTube. I was transfixed by the Aorte- Ritual video – you know, the one where Colin does the flesh hanging towards the end. At that time, I watched that video over and over, the music making me feel both uncomfortable and somber, but also comforted, hopeful and engaged. Heathe have managed to evoke the same feeling with this release, and it was then I knew I had to review the album.
And what a ride this is. Opening track Black Milk Sour Soil is almost 8 mins in length, which is predominantly a raw screamed a cappella vocal telling the story of childhood nightmares about an apocalyptic future that becomes a reality. The track builds slowly to a crescendo with choral chanting and droning strings. It is both terrifying and moving.
Track two, My Gods Destroy is an up-tempo synth based chaotic track filled with live techno beats, choral vocals and a screamed repeated mantra filling the 11-minute runtime. Oh yea, let’s not forget a healthy dose of free jazz and droning saxophone to keep it interesting!
Next up is Valencia’s Next, which has more of a dark industrial tinged atmosphere and a gruff, barked vocal delivery in comparison to the upper register scream of My Gods Destroy or the soft vocal in next track, The Truth Hurts. It works and offers a different color to the already eclectic pallet of Heathe.
The Truth Hurts is a low-key, repetitive, electronic track that has a Massive Attack type groove with industrial overtones and a foreboding and reflective feel.
Penultimate track Uproar Taking Shape, probably my favorite on the release, is absolutely beautiful and juxtaposed to the preceding tracks foreboding and somewhat depressive nature. It gives me with a heart-warming and absolutely uplifting sensation. The first time I heard this track, I was lying in bed in the dark of night and suddenly noticed I was smiling and felt a sense of joy. The beauty and hope that it creates compliments the tracks name. My interpretation of the lyrics here suggests that it is a comment on the hopelessness we all feel at times, and that we actually can change how our world is being shaped and controlled. It also marks as a warning to the oppressors/controllers that there are people out there, standing up, taking the fight and together the many (as one) can take control of the fate of our planet.
The final track, Black As Oil, is as cheerful as the track title suggests and at just under 17 mins in length and is accurately described in the press statement as a “grief stricken void”. Despite its length, I have never felt the track to be over long. It starts with a slow, minimalist vibe which struck a chord close to the more ambient sections of tracks such as Echoes from Cult Of Luna’s Salvation, before building to a crescendo of chaos, screaming and white noise at its end.
The production of the album is fantastic, providing an expansive sound with articulation in the instrumentation and an immersive soundstage that provides depth, space, clarity and beautiful which compliments the themes presented in the lyrics. Variance in vocal tone and textures between tracks is very welcome, suggesting a number of vocalists in the band, and offers new textures to the tracks.
Trying to liken Heathe to any other artist is difficult, so I’m not even going to try and do so. What Heathe have done here with Control Your Heart’s Desire for Freedom is remarkable. Their ability to convey this superb quality of bleak, beautiful, uncomfortable and captivating tracks over the space of 1 hour and 5 mins is impressive. In some ways it feels as mad as a box of frogs, but in others, it all makes complete sense. In any case, it is definitely this listeners kind of madness.
I am sure that Control Your Heart’s Desire for Freedom will not be to everyone’s taste. It’s not an easy ride nor is it a quick listen, but if you make the effort to take it in, the rewards are plentiful. Control Your Heart’s Desire for Freedom is a descent into beautiful hopelessness, I love it and highly recommend you check it out.
(5 / 5)
