Review: Backengrillen - Backengrillen

While we’re still grieving the end of Refused after the band’s final concert in their homeland Umeå, (Sweden) Dennis Lyxzén, Magnus Flagge and David Sandström drop their collaboration with seasoned saxophonist Mats Gustafsson to deliver the self-titled debut album ‘Backengrillen’. Out of this collision comes a jazz-punk record with a destructive aura, fractured by bursts of spontaneity, where the defiant spirit that defined the historic ‘Refused’ remains unswayed. 

The stylistic intersection anchoring Backengrillen won’t surprise long-time fans. On the iconic ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’ (which takes the name from 1959 Ornette Coleman’s avant-garde jazz album) the band was already playing with its “jazzistic” influences - take “Deadly Rhythm” as an example, in the way its bulked riffs dissolve to make room for a jazz-inflected string bass escorted by a virtuous drum performance. The connection with Gustafsson is also no coincidence. Like his colleagues, the musician is also from Umeå - in fact, he had already revealed this same project back in 2022 - and he maintained working and friendly relationships with some members of Refused, despite the age difference.

The debut album materialised at an unusually impulsive pace. According to the band, the songs were written on a Thursday, performed live on a Friday and recorded on a Saturday, resulting in a raw, instinctive sound that embraces all the influences of those involved: “Hardcore Punk, Metal, Free Jazz, noise, et cetera”. It takes no more than 3 minutes and 3 seconds for “A Hate Inferior” to violently erupt into our ears, like a rage attack expressed through an explosion of jazz and noise, driven by a repetitive chord, cycling between a clean guitar and a frantic saxophone, that runs through almost the entire sonic course of the track. Throughout the album, Lyxzén adopts multiple vocal approaches, ranging from intense screaming, the barely disguised nod to Refused’s legacy that can be heard on ‘Repeater II’, to more exploratory tones audible on the album’s title track, ‘Backengrillen’. The other members also approach the album’s sonic landscape as an open playground for genres and instruments. Their influences are as broad as they are unsurprising, touching on traditional jazz, dirty and bare punk, while also venturing into new doom metal iterations.

Whilst Refused are fu***ng dead, this new record is likely to resonate with the most committed followers of the band. Backengrillen’s debut album is now available to stream and buy, courtesy of Svart Records, with the promise of a successor, already in the making, that should be “less stupid and even uglier” (whatever it means).

Words: Mike S.

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Album Highlights
A Hate Inferior
Repeater II

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