Band:	Freak Kitchen
Album:	Everyone Gets Bloody
Style:	Progressive hard rock
Release date:	May 24, 2024
A review by:	Ivor

01. Everyone Gets Bloody
02. Medal
03. Slip
04. Small Acts Of Rebellion
05. The Grief That Does Not Speak
06. Gravity Works
07. Psy Co Op
08. Down The Drain
09. The Expert
10. Session Is Over
11. Pissing Contest

There's a grain of truth to every joke and Freak Kitchen are, to a certain extent, about serious fun. A silly exterior, deceiving musical simplicity, and often borderline juvenile lyrical jabs, however, hide what Freak Kitchen really are. Beneath this facade lie skilful musicianship and keen, intelligent, and satirical insight into our everyday life and being.

The complexity of Freak Kitchen's music has varied over the years. They've even been categorised as a progressive metal band due to Mattias's guitar antics and penchant for signature changes. In truth, at the core, they are a hard rock band, ultimately a power rock trio that relies heavily on Chris's thick bass riffs, Björn's drum patterns, and Mattias's guitar flourish and vocals. With the Everyone Gets Bloody, album their preferred way to tackle serious topics in disguise has become some sort of mid-tempo and mid-complexity not-much-nonsense hard rock.

Somehow that struck a painful nerve with me. My initial plan had been to take inspiration from their lyrics, crack a couple of wise tongue-in-cheek jokes and run with it. There's something to this album, however – the sombre mood maybe? – that just wouldn't let me do it. It's like the world is this absurd fucking tangle of raw unconstrained emotions bound for a cataclysm and this here is the quiet voice of old wisdom and sensibility on the curb. "Gather 'round, children!" Three old – as in not young nor naïve anymore – wise men hard rocking quietly round the campfire. It is basically this subdued statement of utter and profound disbelief at the state of worldly affairs and the human condition that this album is.

This emotion has become so overwhelming for me that it's pretty much eclipsing other aspects of this album, be they flaws or outstanding achievements. On the one hand, musically and lyrically it's more of Freak Kitchen. It's what they are and do. You expect it, they deliver it. On the other hand, it is exceptionally well done and extremely to-the-point. And quite a bold and full sound given their ascetic instrumentation. Mattias's vocals are sounding a notch more worn with each album in what I can only think of in my mind as Swedish fashion (don't ask me to explain this nonsense). And as Chris is the (much) better singer of the two, the only song with him on lead ends up being the one of the unquestionable goosebumps-level highlights. He once remarked that he forgets his bass parts if he has to sing too much but I'm sure his charismatic self is humbly exaggerating there.

I don't even know how to round this one up, to be honest. It's basically – yes! – a "can't see the trees for the forest" kind of case here. It's a sound album musically that I can imagine is still fairly easy to pass by without due attention. However, in a broader sense, it's like a waypoint, a reflection of the present troubling times. Perhaps in toning down the complexity the band have consciously allowed for some room for pondering the eternal, but in the end the album offers but cues. Whether one makes the effort and hikes the distance is ultimately a personal choice. The band have done their part and issued the invitation.