Backxwash
Only Dust Remains
UGLY HAG
Since the turn of the decade, Backxwash has been a tour de force in the underground hip-hop scene. The Zambian-Canadian musician has a penchant for blending metal and drum loops in a way that gnaws at the depths of your soul, and quickly found a loyal fanbase among the metalheads and industrial rap fans drawn to the raw-emotive power of the Backxwash soundscape. After releasing a trilogy of autobiographical albums that concluded in 2023, the rapper took a hiatus from music, telling Kerrang! she needed “to take a break on talking about myself.”
Now, Backxwash returns recharged with Only Dust Remains, an existentialist exploration of death, violence, and, ultimately, love. Grounded by a renewed passion for composition and informed by swirling emotions amidst an increasingly hostile world, Only Dust Remains is Backxwash’s letter to the downtrodden and the hopeless. “Black Lazarus” opens the project like the rumbling of a distant thunderstorm as the rapper rolls through imagery of overdoses and suicidal ideation. Her emphasis on composition is played out through the slow building of overlapped vocal samples and drum fills that grow as the storm nears, crescendoing into a choral belt that flashes like lightning across the arrangement. Repeated outros of “Nobody pray for me / Nobody’s saving me” double down on her thesis before the choral chants fade. It’s an intense experience crafted by a musician who deeply understands the textures of their soundscape.
Beyond the evocation of Lazarus, allusions to Christianity—the faith that deeply shaped her upbringing—pepper the entirety of the project. “9th Heaven” explores the twisted beauty of death through a visit from the angel Gabriel over thumping drums and humming synths. Later, “Stairway to Heaven” presents a similar ethos as electric guitars whine and Backxwash preaches a sermon on fear with a distinctly absurdist flavor. The allusions emphasize the divinity of death, while undercutting traditional representations that center on the Angel of Death as the first companion for those leaving this life.
Perhaps nowhere is the Christian imagery more utilized than in “History of Violence,” a split look at violence from a personal and political lens. Over an anxiety-riddled sound collage, Backxwash likens her depression to the temptation espoused in the Book of Revelation before being denied the Holy Spirit’s Seven Graces. The beat seems to quicken as her raps get more and more frantic, culminating in a scream of “You can meet me in afterlife” before everything hushes to the bare bones of the beat. The back half of the track is a chilling scream for the lives lost in Palestine as the rapper lists the atrocities we’re told to “never mention,” lest we be confronted with accusations of terrorism. Backxwash pulls no punches in calling out the hypocrisy of those who justify genocidal war crimes and the massacre of children in the name of peace.
The Bandcamp synopsis for Only Dust Remains grounds the perspective that Backxwash adopts throughout the project: “These are the songs of a person who was brought back to life but is now haunted by death itself,” it reads. While fear, death, and violence seem inescapable, she offers a hopeful reprieve of the suffering through the words of the great bell hooks. “Love After Death” lifts an excerpt from the writer speaking on what love is over a comforting string soundscape, providing a calming moment for reflection at the end of a tumultuous journey. Backxwash takes hooks’ thesis—that love is “the question of what to do”—and espouses it through the creation of Only Dust Remains. As she says on the closing title track: “I make it out this dark place when I’m in a hard state / But I wanna show y’all love, as I meant it.” Back from death and amid the violence, Backxwash is all love—and she means it.
