Based in the outskirts of the tiny Swedish town of Larv—which has a population of less than 300—Old Kerry McKee is a one-man-band that blends old world blues with death metal. That might sound like an unusual combination, but it’s not only something that Joakim Oskar Malmborg has been doing for years, but also a mixture that’s increasingly seeping into public consciousness, not least because of the recent rise of artists like Zeal & Ardor.
Taken from the forthcoming new album Mono Secular Sounds, “Cattle and Wolves” starts off gently with a seemingly innocuous, classic blues riff, but it soon descends into something altogether more sinister—an evil parallel universe in which Malmborg stomps and shouts like an even more unhinged Tom Waits, and then explodes in the chorus. It’s an intense but brilliant collision of life and death, of darkness and hope, and a burst of vitriolic, existential rage that both captures and sums up the state and the plight of the world in 2020.
At the same time, because of its otherworldly, anachronistic atmosphere, it’s a song that also feels like it’s imbued with a pain and despair that’s as old and ailing as the world itself. While “Cattle and Wolves” might not offer any concrete solutions about how to fix the world, it does offer a chance to get any frustrations out of your system while experiencing the sound of the impending apocalypse.
The video, which you can watch below and which was directed by Old Kerry McKee with Simon and Daniel Blomberg, only adds to that sense of dread and unease as it seems to rewind to a time before anything existed. In a strange way, that’s almost comforting.
