Denmark’s 802 turn their attention to that weird and wonderful year of ‘1986’ when the Challenger Space Shuttle blew up, Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme was assassinated walking home from a night at the cinema (seriously, who would do that today?) the Chernobyl power station blew its top off and crapped all over western Europe, the US struck back against Libya following the Berlin discotheque explosion that killed some of its servicemen and petrol prices went through the roof.
On the whole, the ‘interesting times’ that the Chinese always seem to be wishing on us.
On the other hand, the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik later that year paved the way for the end of the Cold War. Until 24th February 2022 that is.
So 1986 was a polarising year of good and bad and was of course also slap bang in the middle of the best decade for pop music ever.
802 by contrast is an example of de-polarisation, a coming together of sometime hip-hopper and electronic exponent, Andreas Asingh, aka Slowolf, and two heavy metal-ers, Emil Sørensen and Kristian Holbæk, who together devised and formulated the mélange of styles you’ll hear on this single, which somehow manages to shove together fuzzy metal, shoegaze and synth pop and end up with a creature that is less Frankenstein’s Monster and more Rocky from the eponymous Horror Picture Show.
Knowing now what a couple of cool dudes Ronnie and Mikhail were I wouldn’t have been surprised to find them quietly slipping away to a downtown Reykjavik bar back in ’86 to do some serious head banging to this one.
This is their third release following last year’s ‘My Girl’ and 2022’s ‘Velvet Vampire’, both of which featured in short horror films. And Velvet Vampire is the name of a Danish beer they launched in collaboration with the brewer Mikkeller. Possibly the best beer in the world.
I love this video by the way. Their verbal interaction sounds as if it has been taken from one of those Hitler Rants parody videos. Priceless.
Later this year they will play the Nordic metal festival, COPENHELL, and the Roskilde Festival.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/802Band/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/802band/
