The Danish stoner rock/metal band SABOTØR have declared war on the "culture of perfection" and present their war cry with their debut album, "Skyggekæmper", released on June 10^th, 2022. The three-headed fuzz rock monster features a trio of characters but insist that they are not robots and that the outfits they wear are simply masks but many of the press releases would differ. What may or may not be their real names, the band presents its members as integral to their sound, introducing themselves thusly, "Riffmeister K. B. Wellsandts infernal fuzz-machine, which delivers a thunderous cannonade against the public order, Commander-in-chief, M. B.  Fjeldvig, aka Wrecking-Satan, who sets the pace with irresistible authority and swinging accuracy, and Minister of Propaganda, J. R. Kappel, whose fiery tongue lights the torches of rebellion and the twinkle in the eyes of the audiences. He also wields the lead guitar, lapsteel and 12-stringed guitar."

With their debut album "Skyggekæmper", the band seems to have strong political opinions as well as strong ideas of how much has gotten less about creativity and more about efficiency and perfection. The albums name translates to "Shadow Giants" which is a phenomenon that occurs when the light strikes ordinary people at odd angles but can also read as "Shadow Boxer" which is someone who fights with shadows. The band says of their name, "Our enemies are often as intangible as shadows, but just as real." Much of the album's production seems to be handled by the members of the band while mastering of the album was handed off to Emil Thompson of his own company at ET Mastering. While I unfortunately do not understand much of the lyrics as they are all in Danish, the band is clear in their messaging, "We are not afraid of being different. We want to speak for the rejects, and we want to give everyone who suffers in silence a voice they can identify with and a chorus to sing along to. Everyone suffers. It's what makes us human, not robots. When the system demands that we are for sale, remaining true to ourselves is a form of resistance."

SABOTØR certainly know what they want and how to get it but the question is, does their debut album convey the message they want to the listener. It's a very punk, analogue, do-it-yourself affair which adds a bit of a charm as most records have a digital polish that can get dull. It's hard to pinpoint what style they are going for with this album other than undeniably hard rock as the tracks vary a bit in stylistic content. Drum heavy opener and lead single "Robot" is exciting, even for non-Danish speakers but is also strange and sc-fi sounding setting the stage for quite a weird album. "Ro På, Danmark!" meaning "Relax Denmark" then seems to channel a lot of SYSTEM OF A DOWN with fast, nearly spoken word type lyrics after a slow, groovy opening. They really lean into the heavy fuzz of nearly stoner rock at times and at others back off for more a modern rock vibe that could almost be similar to the mid-2000s indie and emo rock like on "Arbejde Gør Fri" or "Work Can Set You Free" and yet, it's still done in a weird off-kilter construct. Outside of its off-kilter stylistic touches and organic production, unfortunately, it just was a bit too different sounding from track to track for me to give it a recommendation.