Danish experimental metal unit HEATHE return with their second single, “Uproar Taking Shape,” taken from the upcoming double album Control Your Soul’s Desire for Freedom, out October 3rd via Empty Tape and Virkelighedsfjern. The track premieres September 5th via IDIOTEQ.com.
A repeated mantra — “There’s an uproar taking shape. There’s a riot on its way” — ignites the new single, which builds toward a cataclysmic finale where autotuned Chinese opera collides with bleeding amplifiers. The song begins with a solitary autotuned vocal, unmistakably Asian in tonality, fragile yet luminous. As more voices enter, grief shifts into hope. At its peak, the a cappella collapses under a mechanical groove, and the intensity escalates: post-hardcore urgency crashes into West Coast hip-hop swagger while a lead vocal screams for uprising among the suppressed.
Thematically, Uproar Taking Shape navigates existential doubt, societal disillusionment, and the restless energy of a world on the brink. “It’s a call to recognize the signs of unrest — and to decide whether to remain passive or take action,” the band note.
Martin Jensen expands on its origins: “Uproar Taking Shape was a demo I made many years ago, built almost entirely out of various stock samples — the most central being a small loop of Chinese opera, which became the hook — along with synth leads, drum machines, and various vocal samples. It had a very mechanical feel and was extremely different from all the previous HEATHE material at that point. At the time, we were a band with five guitarists, so introducing a demo with barely any guitars and a heavy reliance on electronics didn’t translate well in the rehearsal space, and we quickly dropped it.”
The song resurfaced during the pandemic as line-ups shifted: “The combination of aggressive, screamo-ish vocals with a Chinese vocal sample in a major scale created a cool contrast. Making a song that so openly borrowed from hip-hop production while combining it with heavy rock music is very much what this upcoming album is about: gluing disparate elements together and finding a way to make them fit. We did have to stray from the original demo, removing parts that felt too quirky or odd simply for the sake of being odd, leaving us with the core groove and the vocal hook — now sung by Oskar in the studio version, replacing the original sample.”
View this post on Instagram
His fascination with Chinese opera runs deep: “The voicing of Peking opera is unlike anything else — sometimes comical, sometimes deeply sorrowful, but always carrying a certain eeriness. I have a long and deep connection with China, and a fascination with its history and culture. The only time I’ve truly experienced culture shock was my first time in Beijing, when I realized I knew almost nothing about this massive country. Learning about the complexity of the language, about Confucianism, and speaking with people I had previously assumed were suppressed or brainwashed completely shifted my perspective.”
The lyrics can be read both in a historical and present context: “With that in mind, one could potentially read the lyrics as a commentary on the Chinese Cultural Revolution — and perhaps they could be — but the words feel just as relevant today, with the rise of extremist ideology in the West, the wars in Ukraine and Palestine, and ever-increasing investments in building bigger and deadlier weapons. The song is about uproar, and about remembering that power ultimately lies with the people — but unity is essential if we are to challenge the 1% who will do anything, even murder children, to maintain an unfair distribution of power. Dictators are those who hold the wealth, and the idea of political ideology is used only to bind the working class to their benches. Politicians and the rich lie and commit atrocities everywhere in the world, no matter what political system they claim to serve.”
Buried in my troubled mind
Lies questions of the past.
In moments of great remorse,
I feel like I should’ve asked:
What’s the point of being here?
What’s the meaning of it all? …
The mantra eventually erupts into the repeated lines:
“There’s an uproar taking shape. There’s a riot on its way.”
Control Your Soul’s Desire for Freedom spans 65 minutes of dissonant, trance-inducing soundscapes. Whisperin’ & Hollerin’ describe it as:
“This is music which is post-everything: not only post-metal, or blackened post-rock, or post-doom, but music post-time, post-planetary, post-existence.”
The record moves from the foreboding opener Black Milk Sour Soil, through My Gods Destroy’s syncopated groove, the depressive depths of All the Pain for You My Dear, On the Wall’s autotuned chorus and hip-hop swagger, the slow-burn climax of Certain, and the grief-stricken void of Black As Oil. Across these pieces, depressive pop, live techno, pitch-black post-hardcore, and chanted mantras weave into a descent of “beautiful hopelessness.”
The album will be available October 3rd on double vinyl (Empty Tape & Virkelighedsfjern), CD, tape, and digital formats. Pre-orders are live, with limited discounted editions shipping the same day.
Formed in Aalborg in 2016, HEATHE create overwhelming walls of reverb-heavy, metallic noise collages built on dissonance and repetition. On stage, they expand into a six-member orchestra with strings, brass, guitars, electronics, and homemade percussion, blurring eternity and the present in near-ceremonial performances.
Their debut On The Tombstones; The Symbols Engraved (2019, Wolves & Vibrancy) brought them to stages such as Northern Winter Beat, Vinterjazz, and Roskilde Festival.
HEATHE are: Andreas Westmark (Get Your Gun, Hjalte Ross), Filip Dybjerg (The New Family, Narcosatanicos), Jonas Orlowitz (Fräzer), Oskar Krusell (Kogekunst, Hjalte Ross), Simon Mariegaard (Kogekunst, Svaneborg/Kardyb, Calum Builder), Martin Jensen.
Release shows:
16.10.25 — Radar, Aarhus
17.10.25 — Studenterhuset, Aalborg
18.10.25 — Xenon Huset, København
