Dutch alternative metal band After Taste entered the scene with “How To Fake Love”, released in 2021, and are returning four years later with “Hungry For Life”! Described as gothic doom with an electronic twist and drawing inspiration from the likes of Type O Negative, Rammstein, Killing Joke and Soundgarden, I had the opportunity to listen to their sophomore album ahead of its release on June 6th.
Though my personal music library had never previously veered into this sort of territory, After Taste’s atmospheric and always catchy rhythms transported me to a place of deep reflection over a 44 minute runtime. The themes most on show here, including but not limited to the extreme highs and lows of mental health and the duality of life and death, offered me a rare chance to explore my own feelings through a lens I don’t usually look at them through. The songwriting is straightforward and to the point, but these complex stories are delivered skillfully with powerful vocals by the lead singer and founding member, Dave Meester.
“Rise and shine,” the opening track begins. It’s a little on the nose for the start of an album, but “Sustain Me” is hypnotising in its repetition. The closing words of “survive me / sustain me” feel as if they could be the overarching motif of this album, especially as we continue into the heavy self destruction of “Your Flesh”.
The contrast between this and the gentle start of “Mind Over Body” would feel a little sharp if not for Meester’s steady vocals kicking in when they do, and this softer and more vulnerable version of him is especially compelling. “I should feel pain not just pleasure” is a mournful sort of refrain, haunting even after we jump to the steady drums of “Morning XTC”. In another interesting juxtaposition, where “Mind Over Body” can be summed up by Meester soulfully begging for comfort, “Morning XTC” can be taken as a more sultry reflection on that same relationship. It’s as if, previously, he felt their presence in his dreams would have brought him that solace he was seeking, though now he’s aware of how messy and perhaps not very good for him they really are. The drug analogy alluded to in the title goes deeper than one might expect.
Where “Lost At Sea” is mesmeric and defeatist (“Don’t cry for me, don’t search for me”), “Methmouth” is a cautionary tale in sung form. “Picking at your skin / the bugs can’t hide forever” inspires the kind of grim visual that a song like this is owed, and “Liquid Courage”, coming off all of these other tracks, makes me wonder if anyone ever came along to prove his insistence that “you [couldn’t] save me if you tried” right. By this point in the album, it feels as if Meester, or the protagonist that he plays at, has very much turned into the monster he imagines himself. “Get Down”, featuring guest vocalist Micky Huijsmans, is a song I particularly enjoyed thanks to the intensity that follows an expressive opening, and the mildly more electric “Centerpiece Concubine” brings the EDM and synthwave influences to the forefront of an album that feels a little divorced from either, at least to me.
My favorite of the lot by far is “Back To You”. Last but by no means least of the albums tracklist, it starts slower and sets up a softer, more reflective piece than the previous entries. Stripping back the sound allows Meester to transform into a much gentler character, here, one who seems to have finally learned his own shortcomings. Following on from all the other songs, this is an interesting way to end the album and may not be fully to the taste of people picking up it up, but I found it really effective at closing out the journey we had been on. It really stuck with me a little more than I expected, and Meester shines.
All in all, I found that “Hungry For Life” was a little disjointed but overall emotionally compelling. After Taste handle their music and video production independently. Meester is on record as saying, “If we don’t know something, we find it, learn it, and apply it. This is as real and imperfect as it gets, giving the band a unique charm.” I agree with that sentiment. It isn’t to my usual taste, but it is striking in its darkness, and even more so in the way it couples that with catchy beats and strong, sincere lyricism.
“Hungry For Life” provided me with plenty of earworms for the next few days, and gets a strong 7 out of 10 on my rating scale.
Reviewer – Rachel Cooney