The concept of a “Christmas miracle” might raise eyebrows amongst those more accustomed to receiving lumps of coal this time of year, yet somehow, London’s resident agitator Mark Hex has found it in his festive heart to deliver precisely that. His new record, Edge Lore Of The Land Of Nihilists, emerges like a half-lit sparkler waved in fog—both a celebration and an indictment of our decaying world.
Hex is no stranger to provocative mischief. If you haven’t caught him venting spleen at a festival or rattling the rafters of London’s best (and worst) clubs, you might have stumbled upon him behind the decks at the inimitable Slimelight. Committed to keeping the capital’s edges as sharp as possible, Hex has long toyed with punk’s primal heartbeat and post-punk’s cavernous echoes. But with this latest release, the stakes are higher: it’s an album that picks at the scabs of nostalgia, questions the price of adulthood, and interrogates just how many more times we can evoke “the good old days” before they collapse under scrutiny.
The principal tension of Edge Lore Of The Land Of Nihilists emerges from Hex’s attempts to parse a world that feels increasingly alien. You sense an underlying prickliness towards an era when Camden thrummed with creative chaos, when The Libertines and Amy Winehouse haunted the boozy corners of Soho, and when Steve Albini was patron saint to all things loud, abrasive, and essential. Flashes of The Fall, PiL, Billy Bragg, and Big Black resonate throughout, but there’s a twist in the tail: this restless old punk has unexpectedly drawn lines to Nick Drake, Smog, and James Orr Complex—suggesting that, behind every righteous rant, there might lurk a tender reflection.
Where else could you possibly find references to Zager and Evans, The Smiths, The Damned, and an unexpected Pavement cover, all within spitting distance of one another? Hex’s presence as a historian of the margins proves to be both endearing and unsettling—like rummaging through a musty old trunk in some Camden lock-up, unearthing polaroids of nights so chaotic you can’t be sure they weren’t figments of your imagination.
The album’s front cover, a snapshot of Hex at a Manic Street Preachers and Suede show at Margate’s Dreamland, underscores his ongoing flirtation with youthful nostalgia. Here is the aging provocateur, briefly time-warped into being 15 again, staring wide-eyed at the neon swirl of a seafront carnival. It’s a perfect representation of the record itself: a delirious collision of sincerity and piss-taking, capturing that fleeting taste of revelry so many of us chase long after it’s wise to do so.
Edge Lore Of The Land Of Nihilists begins with “U OK, UK?”, a strangely haunting opener that radiates thick, ambient strums. Quickly, the tracklist careens into “Passat Dream,” a Pavement cover that Hex reworks with a rasping, acerbic swagger—proof, if ever it was needed, of that transatlantic lineage bridging the run-down pubs of London and the battered basements of Middle America.
There’s synth-laden introspection on “Salaryman,” complete with CB-radio-styled vocals, while “Ain’t Life So Boring Now? (The World Became A Restaurant)” offers an acerbic tongue-lashing over gently strummed guitar, twirling more Legendary Pink Dots than you might expect. These compositional gambits thread through the brooding intermezzo “Scotch In Rye” and into “In The Year 2004,” a Syd Barrett-meets-Zager-and-Evans mind-bender that manages to channel visions of both cosmic whimsy and crumbling futures.
For the closing moments, Hex hurls listeners into the sticky atmosphere of the New Cross Inn, where the final cuts are brimming with all the rawness and chaos of a truly lived-in set. You’ll hear a merciless cover of The Fall’s “Happi Song,” a poignant nod to influences overshadowing the entire record, as well as a brand-new confessional called “The Day Steve Albini Died.” Rounding out the set are a few old favourites—“Black, Deaf And A Lesbian” and “Kill Yr Boss”—that reaffirm the unholy trifecta of irreverence, angst, and dark humour which defines Hex’s musical identity.
Listen to Edge Lore of the Land of Nihilists below, and order here
EDGELORE OF THE LAND OF NIHILISTS by Mark Hex
Those who embrace this rowdy reflection will discover a voice both defiantly entrenched in history and cackling at modernity’s grim punchline. And perhaps that’s the real “Christmas miracle”: amidst the annual onslaught of tinsel and forced cheer, Mark Hex remains true to his iconoclastic roots, reminding us that some spirits refuse to be tidied away, no matter how many baubles you hang around them.
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