Netherwilds – Peasant Rising
Release Date: 9th October 2026
Label: King Volume Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Peasant Metal, Avant-Garde Metal, Thrash, Punk, Hardcore.
FFO: Refused, Mr Bungle, Dillinger Escape Plan, System Of A Down.
Review By: Paul Franklin
We all know that there is a fine line between genius and insanity.
Netherwilds take this line and use it as a skipping rope. Their debut album, Peasant Rising is mad as a box of frogs, but as joyful as a basket of Freddos!
It began in late 2024, when David Monks unexpectedly carved out a strange niche on social media with videos featuring his dirt-covered peasant character, “Worm Chewer”, filmed among the stone ruins of the Irish countryside. As the audience grew across TikTok and Instagram, so did the mythology surrounding the character. Beneath the absurdist humour and medieval roleplay was something unexpectedly relatable: a depiction of feudal survival, class division, hunger, labour and desperation that mirrored modern anxieties closely enough to strike a nerve with viewers.
Inspired by the possibility of speaking to people through the fantasy and nerd culture he had loved since childhood, Monks began building a musical world around the character. The first single, Return the Goat, introduced a furious peasant narrator with nothing left to lose—blending everything from blast beats and hardcore breakdowns to bouzoukis, medieval instrumentation and epic storytelling. Now the world of Return the Goat has been fully realized in Peasant Rising—a narrative medieval metal album that transforms feudal revolt into a metaphor for the modern class divide whilst sounding like a mash up of Monty Pythons Holy Grail and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Take the opening title track, a short sub two-minute blast then begins with some ecclesiastical chanting, which is soon consumed by a sordid hardcore assault before it wraps up with a spoken word section and a medieval drinking song. The follow-up, Peasant Pit, is equally eccentric, some finger-picking bouzouki that gets absolutely smashed to pieces by a monstrous Deftones groove.
The uniqueness (and genius) of the album is down to you never knowing what’s coming in each of the tracks, some that seem to be straight-ahead raging hardcore punk numbers (Helm Yeah and Siege Proof Hovel) suddenly drop in some medieval shenanigans, whilst others that seem to be medieval folk tunes (The Fall, Cry In The Hay) are torn asunder by some truly filthy riffs. But, whichever way the song goes, there is always something that will keep you interested, whether it be a jaunty sing-along section of a groove so down and dirty it sounds like it has just been dug up from a muddy turnip field.
There are twenty-two tracks listed on Peasant Rising; however, approximately half of these are short spoken word ‘skits’ that aim to push the overall story forward. Some are very Python-esque, but (like most similar ‘interludes’) will probably be skipped on repeated listening. On the subject of Python, if you are a fan of The Holy Grail, it will be hard to listen to The Ballad of Sir Gregory without thinking of the classic ‘Brave Sir Robin’. Dungeon Song is a particular highlight, going from the plaintive despair of being locked away to a full-throated rage against the unjust system. The inclusion of a mellow voice announcing that this is “My dungeon song” (like a wanky hipster at an open mic night) makes it all the better when it drops a hardcore breakdown like a boulder from the castle walls.
This album is far from a run-of-the-mill metal album, and you’ve probably not heard anything like it before. It may not make it onto your regular playlist, but when you do go back and listen to it (and you will!) it will wow you all over again!
“Let the peasant uprising begin!”
(4 / 5)
