Let’s get one thing straight: Satanic Panic Attack isn’t trying to impress you. It doesn’t care about your playlists or your genre tags. This thing came howling out of the Norwegian wastelands like a grease-soaked demon on a chopper, middle finger raised, speakers blazing, and no goddamn brakes.
HÅNDGEMENG aren’t here to reinvent the wheel – they’re burning it down and riding the smoldering axle straight into the pit. Their so-called doom n’ roll isn’t a clever marketing term, it’s a way of life. It’s what happens when five guys crawl out of a ditch with Sabbath riffs in their bones, Motörhead in their blood, and a serious taste for fire.
This album doesn’t open gently. It lurches into motion like some half-sentient beast, all fuzz-drenched guitars, thunder-thud drums, and vocals that sound like they’ve been clawed out of the back of a throat coated in smoke and spite. The production’s just dirty enough – no polish, no shine, just raw energy and heat, like it was recorded inside a furnace with blown tubes and a case of warm beer.
The riffs are relentless. Not just heavy, but mean. Nasty. Riffs that feel like they’ve been carved out of concrete with a rusted blade, riffs that drag you through the dust and don’t stop to ask if you’re still breathing. There’s groove here too – this isn’t just plodding doom. It swings when it wants to. Lurches when it needs to. It’s got swagger, but the kind that comes with a black eye and a busted tooth.
Forget stage lights and crowd chants. This feels like the soundtrack to some midnight cult ritual out in the woods, lit by bonfires and backed by engine revs and bad omens. There’s a real sense of world-building here – not in some polished, lore-heavy way, but in the way all great heavy records do: by soundtracking a place that only exists in fever dreams and post-apocalyptic nightmares. HÅNDGEMENG live in that place, and they’ve brought back a souvenir soaked in gasoline and blood.
The cover of Satanic Panic Attack is pure madness. Five dudes, caked in corpse paint, totally naked and locked in a sweaty group hug – it’s equal parts hilarious and unsettling. Shot in raw black and white, it feels like a cult photo from the basement of a haunted house, or a lost page from some deranged biker bible. There’s something weirdly tender about it too, like they’re saying, yeah, we’re freaks – but we’re freaks together. The amps behind them and the paisley backdrop nod to their heavy rock lineage, but everything about the image is warped, off-kilter, and a little possessed – just like the music. This is a mission statement: no shame, no filter, no gods, no masters. You don’t look at this and think “marketing” – you think what the hell is going on here, and that’s exactly the point.
Satanic Panic Attack is the sound of a band that knows exactly where it comes from, but couldn’t care less about pleasing the past. It’s alive in the moment, sweating and snarling and ready to kick the teeth in of anything that smells like safety.
So yeah, if you’re after something clean, clever, or cute, you’re barking up the wrong tree. But if you want something that grabs you by the collar and drags you through fire – this is it. HÅNDGEMENG didn’t make an album. They summoned a beast. And it’s hungry.
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Released by Ripple Music on April 11th, 2025
