Strange Flesh - The Hardest Thing To Burn Is The Heart (2024) Hi-Res

The Hardest Thing To Burn Is The Heart from transatlantic duo Strange Flesh delivers subterranean poetic soundscapes in a vortex of iridescent 21st-century gothic electronica. Bryony Hegarty reviews for Louder Than War

Strange Flesh enter 2025 reincarnated from their former identity The Casual Sexists, heralding a pulsating new album: The Hardest Thing To Burn Is The Heart. The NYC-based transatlantic pair Varrick and Ed Zed, combine a strong handle on traditional instrumentation, electronica, and environmental noise alongside a love of prescient and witty lyrics. In exploring dark recesses of the human heart, Strange Flesh push the boundaries with humour and an uneasy sense of possibility. Additionally, their melee of left-field synth-pop, dub, and bass arrangements are intricately playful and inventive on a journey through twilight landscapes.

The opening title track The Hardest Thing To Burn Is The Heart (a line from punk zombie ’80s film Return Of The Living Dead) explores the dark side of love. The next song, Very conjures a resilient bass-rich word ricochet, joyfully expressing free-spirited dissent from stereotypical expectations of women. Following on, Our Dinner With Anna is a quirky take on celebrity social neurosis. The perfection of a boundless bond and the intensity of star-crossed lovers join in harmonic hedonistic union on Chaos Hearts.

Paradoxically, Many Clocks conjures an ironic sense of suspension into the void. Croydon Fox, delves into tabloid vilification and outsider misrepresentation creating cunning characterisation in addition to a carnal bark and scream. Enigmatic, Single / No Return expresses yearning before Subway Rain creates a dystopian percussive, hinterland. In The Harbour mixes industrial beats into an unsettling expression of a disjointed relationship.

Two cover versions add to the disquiet, lending themselves expediently to the Strange Flesh nuance. Firstly, leaning into the macabre on Leon Payne’s murder ballad, Psycho, Varrick’s honeyed vocal plays to the dark side. Then a take on The Cravats’ Burning Bridges ricochets and spirals, reverberating energy. Finally, Dog Days, Dog Nights dwells with brave honesty in bleak yet compelling contemplation.

The Hardest Thing To Burn Is The Heart brims with talent heightening expectations of what comes next from Strange Flesh.