MASTER’S HAMMER
Maldorör Disco
DARKNESS SHALL RISE
Czechia’s freewheeling firebrands return to bewilder
Master’s Hammer have been making deeply strange music for most of their four-decade career, but even by their usual, eccentric standards, Maldorör Disco is a spinning, multicoloured curveball. Rooted in mutant electropop as much as black metal, the Czechia legends spend their ninth studio effort in a gleeful state of psychosis. Links to the extreme underground are still hazily discernible, but opener Andel Slizu and the suitably bizarre Genesis P. Orridge draw more from obscure electronica and symphonic opulence, as synths squiggle, beats glitch and stutter, and frontman Franta Štorm barks bleak declarations with an obvious debt to Laibach’s Milan Fras. Avowedly out there, but weirdly accessible, Maldorör Disco is a wonderfully perverse, avant-garde triumph. And you can dance to it. ■■■■■■■■■■