For almost two decades The Death of Money have carved out a notable home for themselves in the darkened recesses of every dank venue, intrigued soul, and drunken discussion about deserving underground metal.
Their sound, a smouldering approximation of doom and sludge metal cut with an astute concoction of goth, post-rock and shoegaze has always felt just one record away from greatness. Like a fast-moving train collision between grand concepts and brutal noise, this year the Cardiff/Manchester trio celebrate their twentieth anniversary with the release of their eagerly anticipated album, Error After Era.
When writing Error After Era, The Death of Money made the conscious decision to employ sonically heavier riffs. The kind more befitting of a live setting. Experimenting with loops, synths and Mellotron, and welcoming the incredibly talented vocalist Bethan Lloyd into the fold (on ‘Error After Era’ and ‘Wasp Screams’), the band has not only produced a glorious mutation of all their previous albums to date, but quite possibly their best sounding one yet.
Having collaborated in the past with the likes of Jarboe (Swans) and shared stages with bands such as Beak>, Cate Le Bon, Gnod, Giant Swan, Pelican, and The Icarus Line, the band will also continue to make noise where it’s needed the most when they take to the road in support of Error After Era next month. Marking twenty years of keeping it heavy and remaining true to their sound and vision, the album will be released on 8th November on the Suntreader label, and can be pre-ordered here.
We asked the band about 3 releases that have played a big influence on them as musicians and the band’s sound. Check out their great choices below…
Will Haven – El Diablo
This album was a game changer for us, we were this bizarre noise punk band with very odd songs before this de-railed us in a big way. My mate Tim in college gave me a cassette copy which had this on side A and Evil Empire by Rage Against the Machine on side B. He didn’t mention it, but I knew that he’d stolen the tape from his French class at school because after the albums had finished there was this GCSE French lesson that would come on. The harsh feedback of El Diablo’s last track ‘Escucha!’ would segue into ‘comment t’appelles-tu?’. Ha.
There was also something unique going on with Will Haven that really pops off on this album. It’s ultra-heavy music, not just sonically. I love the ambient sounds that are buried in there, and I love that every song kinda sounds the same. It feels like one gigantic song where each track blends into the next in a natural way. I wouldn’t go anywhere near a phaser effects pedal but somehow Jeff Irwin makes it sound incredibly eerie and apocalyptic, there are sounds that remind me of the Terminator 2 soundtrack. There aren’t many better introductions to an album than the intro to ‘Stick Up Kid’. It just sounds so menacing. I was sold from the first twenty seconds, the first song we wrote when we changed our band name and entire direction is called ‘Shit Shaped’ and is a massive rip off of that song.
My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
It was difficult picking a quintessential shoegaze album because there are so many that I love. It was hard to even decide on an MBV album. Isn’t Anything could be better than this, and I love the You Made Me Realise record too, but it was Loveless that got me into MBV. The reason I bought it on CD from HMV in Newport was because for years I had this song that I taped off a John Peel session, but I never knew the name of the band. It was this badass riot girl/grunge song that was pure rage. I bought a bunch of albums by bands that had a female vocalist hoping that one day I would find this mystery band/song. That’s why I first bought Loveless. I was initially disappointed as it clearly wasn’t the band I was looking for. If only Shazam had existed back then. I did eventually find out who it was. It turned out to be ‘Get Ahead’ by a Manchester band called Solar Race.
I thought my CD player was broken when I first heard Loveless. I’d never heard the guitar being played this way before. It was bending in and out of tune and was all so wonky, but it was such a beautiful, blissful sound with these gorgeous chord progressions. When you hear a song like ‘Come in Alone’ there’s no going back. I got to hang out one evening with Debbie Googe at Islington Mill in Manchester when she was playing bass for Thurston Moore. She told me she used to be a taxi driver in London for a while after Loveless came out and MBV went quiet. She also liked my Welsh accent.
Taint – Die Die Truthspeaker
I had to pick this record because it is such an important one for us. Not just this record but the band in general. When me and our drummer went to see Snapcase and Avail play at the now legendary TJs in Newport, Taint opened the show (Lost Prophets also played) and I think there was only the two of us watching Taint since they played so early. We were young and naive and assumed that Taint was this American band or something. I was surprised to read in the CD inlay that they were from Swansea. We became good mates eventually and our first gig was supporting them, and their singer and guitarist Jimbob also filled in on bass for us in 2019 and 2020 just before Covid happened.
The rawness and energy of this record was like a breath of fresh air to us at the time, I’d never heard vocals be so low in the mix and this just added to the uniqueness. There was a mystery about this record, the song writing was so pure, fresh, and full of fury. The riffs were intelligent and the sludge more prominent here than any of their later albums, which are also bad ass.
