The first week of January is the loneliest time of the year. The holiday spirit fades like limp branches on a dried-out Christmas tree, the rainwater lining the streets freezes to an untraversable coating of ice, and a cruel darkness engulfs most of the day, allowing us to sit idly alone with nothing but out thoughts, memories, and regrets. But a wave of new music soon washes over us, and helping pull us from this annual malaise right now is “D.O.D.,” the new single from DAMEFRISØR.
Pronounced “dame-eh-frizz-yuor,” the English industrial post-rock collective out of Bristol surface the moody track today (January 5), a low hum of thunder that serves as the follow-up to November’s striking “Horizon” and latest off forthcoming debut EP Island of Light, out February 24 via Permanent Creeps Records.
The EP was produced by Alex Greaves (Working Men’s Club, bdrmm, Lice), and as the pair of track releases quickly prove over a succinct seven minutes, DAMEFRISØR is set to soundtrack our 2023 in a rather profound way. Whether we aim to welcome them in with present company is up to us.
“’D.O.D.’ is about feeling invisible,” says vocalist Kazhi Jahfar. “The song talks about the feeling of going through something but feeling as though no one is aware of your existence. Loneliness in cities is a recurring theme across the record, musically I feel like the song explores the intensity of trying to be seen with all efforts amounting to nothing. Lyrically it’s a sort of internal monologue reacting to the stressful atmosphere created by that feeling.”
That feeling doesn’t go away, regardless of the time of year. Embrace “D.O.D.” and all of winter’s distance below, and welcome perhaps the first new brilliant track of the young and uncertain year.
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