Photo Credit: Ray Burmiston
Songs about making deals with the devil have existed almost as long as musicians have had something they wanted badly enough to bargain for. Between Suns find a suitably strange new corner of that tradition on ‘My Kinda Devil’.
Loosely inspired by Michael Moorcock’s The War Hound and the World’s Pain, the East London band transform a tale of mercenaries, Lucifer and the Holy Grail into a brooding journey through alt-rock, psychedelia and cinematic grandeur.
Appropriately, the song began not with its story but with a bassline. That opening idea becomes the foundation for something increasingly expansive, with driving drums and bass surrounded by swirling guitars, subtle violin and atmospheric textures. Recorded at Livingston Studios with longtime collaborator Nick Tauber, ‘My Kinda Devil’ feels deliberately restless, rarely content to remain in one musical space for long.
That movement is essential. Rather than simply recounting Moorcock’s story, Between Suns approach the track like a short film, allowing shifts in intensity and texture to create the sensation of travelling deeper into unfamiliar territory. Traces of 70s psychedelia and prog collide with post-punk urgency and contemporary theatrical rock without the song becoming trapped by any particular era.
At the centre is Nausicaä’s remarkable vocal presence. Her operatic delivery can soar above the arrangement with considerable force before suddenly exposing something more fragile underneath. That tension between power and vulnerability gives the fantastical narrative a human centre; bargains with Lucifer become considerably more interesting when you can hear the uncertainty behind them.
The wider band are equally important to the track’s sense of scale. Paul Lisak’s guitar work moves between atmosphere and attack, while Illia Lisak’s bass provides the foundation from which much of the song originally grew. Sofia Lisak’s violin adds another dimension without becoming ornamental, and Reuben Rost’s drums keep the increasingly elaborate arrangement moving forward.
Written during lockdown, ‘My Kinda Devil’ also carries a certain claustrophobic restlessness beneath its expansive production. Perhaps that’s why a story about somebody desperately searching for salvation after making a terrible bargain feels particularly suited to it.
Between Suns understand that theatricality works best when there is something unsettling underneath the spectacle. ‘My Kinda Devil’ is dark, ambitious and occasionally beautiful, unfolding less like a conventional rock single than a short story gradually losing control of itself.
For a song involving Lucifer and the Holy Grail, anything more restrained would probably have been disappointing.
