As it turns out, the central sound on Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom isn’t quite as mind-boggling as it might seem. I’d place Heathe in the same category as The Body or Swans—sonic provocateurs who rely on oppressive atmosphere in tandem with monotonous repetition while pulling liberally from various musical traditions to convey emotion, often at the cost of songwriting. There are indeed notes of nü metal, gospel, and jazz scattered throughout the album, but they don’t redefine Heathe’s core aesthetic. Instead, these elements serve to augment the central concept or thematic devices of each track. Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom is clearly intended more as a listening “experience” meant to illicit powerful emotions than a collection of songs for consumptive pleasure. Each of the 6 tracks offers a different flavor of existential dread, ranging from harsh industrial loops accented by jazzy horns (“My Gods Destroy”) to Massive Attack-like triphop ethereal beats and autotuned choral vocals (“Uproar Taking Shape”). The only constants across them are a throat-shredding screamo wail, which makes up the majority of Heathe’s vocal delivery, 1 and an almost slavish devotion to repetition.
Each song is built on a distinct rhythmic or melodic idea, repeated ad nauseam throughout its runtime. To their credit, Heathe add nuance by carefully shaping the pacing and delivery of these repetitions. Opener “Black Milk Sour Soil” begins with a cappella screams that persist for several minutes before giving way to subtle synth rhythms, tribal drumming, and ominous group chanting. “Valencia’s Next” employs many of the same elements but builds them around a hypnotic central drum loop, adding and subtracting blasts of harsh noise alongside, yes, jazz flute. Individually, these tracks are compelling and texturally rich. Taken together, however, the elongated song lengths and the band’s preference for atmosphere over traditional song structure can make a full-album listen daunting. Heathe place powerful climaxes at the end of several tracks, ecstatic post-rock crescendos where the horns and choirs break into consonance, but they aren’t enough to entice me back into repeated listens.
In many ways, Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom feels less like a conventional album and more like a performance art piece designed for a live audience. Heathe clearly understand how to convey emotional intensity, both uplifting and harrowing, and they wield that skill to striking effect. The final track, “Black As Oil,” is a gorgeous blend of modern classical and ambient, serving as a powerful yet bittersweet resolution after an album steeped in oppressive textures. As the strained vocals fade over shimmering guitar melodies, I’m hit with a wave of emotion—a kind of pained calmness. It’s the same sensation I might get from an avant-garde live performance that’s both awe-inspiring and slightly alienating. There’s real power in Heathe’s ability to evoke that feeling, but as a piece of recorded music, it leaves me wanting just a little more.
Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom is a difficult album for me to pin down. As a fan of the autre and experimental, I’ve endured more than my fair share of tuneless dirges masquerading as clever, and Heathe are not guilty of that. Beyond offering genuinely novel and distinctive sounds, there’s a powerful emotional core to this album that I deeply respect, but not one I’m keen to repeatedly partake in. Heathe are a band I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on, and I’d love to experience their brand of sonic alienation in a live setting. For now, though, they fall short of delivering an album that feels truly essential.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Empty Tape / Virkelighedsfjern
Websites: hethe.bandcamp.com|facebook.com/heathedeath
Releases Worldwide: October 3rd, 2025
