64:27 // October 3, 2025 // Empty Tape/Virkelighedsfjern
Not exactly a household name, Danish act Heathe left their first impression with those in the know with their 2019 debut On the Tombstones, the Symbols Engraved, an ambitious one-track LP which fused a blackened doom metal foundation with a tangle of assorted electronic and psychedelic influences, suggesting an experimental spirit. It took them six years, but now they’re back, affirming that claim with a sophomore effort even more vastly sprawling in wide-ranging influences.
Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom is simply huge - a gargantuan six track LP stretching over an hour - intense in approach, apocalyptic in mood, and pulling liberally from genres as far afield as doom metal, post-rock, jazz, ambient, and techno. It doesn’t always come together fully, but the ambition is laudable, and the end results are more coherent than they have any right to be.
Even while the overall product is fairly strong, it’s important to note that this album doesn’t put its best foot forward - opener “Black Milk Sour Soil” begins with almost acapella (and loud) harsh vox which I find immensely unpleasant to listen to, but once this regrettable segment transitions into screams over bop-y electronic beats, everything that follows proves far more suitable. This isn’t to say that the rest of the record is fully excellent throughout (listeners are almost guaranteed to prefer one or another aspect of the heterogeneous musical ideas present), but one can see the craft involved. “Valencia’s Next” is one of the stronger tunes, its drifting approach creating a moody and ominous atmosphere. If “The Truth Hurts” feels a little disjointed, its brooding mid-section pairing hushed clean vox and nice grooves simply works. The mammoth closing track, “Black As Oil” stands out as well, beginning with cinematic drama, transitioning into glacially beautiful post-rock, and then finishing the album with passionate snarls.
I say this half in jest, but the best comparison I find for the sonic landscape presented here is if someone decided to cram the influences of all eras of the Ulver discography into one album (admittedly, a rather hefty album). Perhaps unsurprisingly, I recommend the resulting product more as an intriguing curiosity than a fully-formed masterpiece, but I do think it’s a rather commendable piece of music as a whole. Oddly enough, as someone who found Heathe’s debut most impressive in its more conventional blackened doom moments, it’s the less metal and more ambient/electronic leaning sections which I find most compelling here. Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom is dark and most definitely very weird, but ultimately quite satisfying as a creative venture unafraid to go (far) beyond the conventional path.
7.0/10
The album's heterogeneity is its biggest strength, meaning it works best when consumed as a whole unit, not so much in decimals. That said, we spend *a lot* of time with each idea presented thanks to the occasionally self-indulgent, often drawn-out compositional style, which ultimately makes the prospect of a full spin more daunting than inviting. It probably didn’t need to be quite this long, but when you work on something — anything, really — for five years, there's bound to be some feature creep and bloat, I suppose.
The comparison to a condensed version of Ulver’s catalog is both apt and illuminating when trying to trace the album’s arc, though this one stands firmly on its own feet. The real question is: does it have legs? I can safely say I’m more likely to reach for something that's at least a bit more direct and concise.
Album is out this Friday, Oct 3rd. It's a very strange release but I've gotten a fair bit of enjoyment out of it, certainly worth checking (and don't let the first minute or so drive you away).