Here we go then, first album of a new year, we’re starting 2025 with a big one…

The Residents – Doctor Dark (Cherry Red) – “That sounds like the Residents!” she shouted from another room, I guess, even though the birdsong is followed by some almost bombastic almost thrashing stomping metal for a minute or two, I guess there is a very definite sound to those distinctive Residents and that orchestral calm that kicks in after Prelude/Metal Madness is disturbingly reassuring…  

The first new studio album in almost five years, “take a journey into the greasy world of euthanasia, drug abuse and an unhealthy obsession with heavy metal, as seen through the eyes of San Francisco’s legendary anonymous multimedia collective” reads the press release, the new album from the Residents just landed, the first review of 2025 is calling us – review? feature?  whatever it is we actually do here while we’re mostly doing other things. Who are the Greasy Weasels? Does that shouty bloke from The Flying Luttenbachers know? I was once just like you? What we have here is a giant theatrical concept album

“The Residents are back! Several years in the making, Dr Dark is a brand-new, three act concept album in the tradition of God In Three Persons, Bunny Boy and other classics, recorded with the San Francisco Conservatory Of Music and visionary conductor and producer Edwin Outwater, best known for his work with Metallica. Veering between blissed out electronica, dark, brooding soundscapes and balls-to-the-wall industrial metal, and tackling familiar, twisted Residents fascinations – death, sex, love, loss, identity and planes of existence beyond the immediate – this new album sees a reinvigorated, new look Residents venture into places few artists are willing to go, accompanied by familiar guests and collaborators Eric Drew Feldman, Sivan Lioncub, Peter Whitehead, Isabelle Barbier, Warren Huegel, Rob Laufer and John Cameron Sprayze…”

Now we could start comparing and contrasting, is it as good as the other albums? Is it better? None of that matters as much and the right here and now of it all, throwing a floating eyeball on this particular one and this particular one sounds epically good to me, it sounds massive, a mammoth construction that takes us all over the musical show, it is certainly classic Residents, she just shouted from the other room that “this sounds amazing”, she is right, it is rather amazing, amazingly theatrical, it is epic.

“Meet Maggot, Mark and the eponymous Doctor Anastasia Dark, and watch in slow motion horror as their worlds accelerate towards their inevitable, interconnected fates. “The Buddha said that life is misery. For the terminally ill, dying in pain, life is misery compounded – but what comes next? Is there a heaven, a nirvana, a paradise full of virgins for every martyr? No one knows, but what is known is that nothing makes humans more uncomfortable than death – the ultimate unknown, the other side of zero, the everlasting void. But maybe death is nothing more than a warm feeling, after a lifetime of whatever misery we choose to embrace, suggesting that nothing is quite so satisfying as one more dip into a lovely river, endlessly flowing into forever. Maybe it is possible to die happily ever after…….” – The Residents

What is there to say? You’ve got a new album from The Residents, it does just exactly what you want it to do without ever just being another Residents album, You really don’t expect them to ever make just another Residents album do you? This is an excellent Residents album, a full on theatrical production, and yes, all the usual dancing around death – some of it sounds like Dickens musical adaption or maybe that’s way off the mark and someone is tearing down the Wall with the help of a carpet crawler or two? Whatever it is it is a massively theatrical rather orchestral concept album and it is rather, well, it is rather brilliant. Dark in places, beautiful when it wants to be, powerfully quiet when it needs to be and well, I could write a book about it, but you don’t need all that, you don’t need spoilers, all you really need is a great big yes! And a warning to get yourself to that cinema, the album has been running on repeat for the last day and a half while surgeons reassembled everything during what has been a 34 hour operation, they are the gift that appears to still be giving, this is an epic film of an album. Fear not fight fans, the eyes have it… (sw)    

Available on 2LP and CD, Dr Dark will be released worldwide on February 28th 2025 via Cherry Red Records and MVD Entertainment. The press release talks of a single/lead track in January, nothing yet though. Watch this space for an update…

www.residents.com / Cherry Red