Aarhus-based screamo band Puke Wolf return with their most ambitious work to date — the 11-minute “Hyena Laugh,” featuring Demersal and Sophia Larsdotter of the avant-garde string quartet Who Killed Bambi.
The song marks the latest preview from their upcoming album “Descend,” due in February 2026, a release that stretches the band’s sound while keeping close to the core tension and emotion that define their music.
“‘Hyena Laugh’ is a song about people who exploit others while cloaking themselves in self-pity,” says Andrew Davidson (drums/vocals). “It’s a slow-burning kind of rage. We wanted to explore that feeling musically across several movements, instead of trying to compress it into a single burst.”
The track unfolds in three distinct phases — a brooding opening that blends spoken and screamed vocals with dissonant guitars, a cinematic middle passage led by Larsdotter’s violin, and a final section where everything unravels as Demersal crash in, screaming the repeated lines: “Some swear they’ll change / But you never will.”
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“We’ve known Demersal for quite some time, and we’ve featured on their track ‘Som et barn mod dit bryst’ from last year’s self-titled, so when we wrote music for ‘Descend,’ we knew we wanted to include them,” explains Lasse Højgaard (bass/vocals). “We didn’t want it to be just a guest spot. We wanted it to feel like another band crashing into the song.”
That collision of energies didn’t come easy. “Honestly, I was a bit concerned at first,” admits Viktor Ravn (guitar/vocals) from Demersal. “We didn’t really have time to meet up and work things out together as a full band, so I wasn’t sure how we’d pull it off. That said, I’ve always liked the idea of a band functioning as a single unit — as something collective rather than individual. So I also thought it was a brilliant idea to have the energy of an entire band featured on a song to contribute with a more chaotic, but also wholesome energy.”
Each Demersal member recorded separately, without prior coordination. “We all did our parts separated without discussing much,” Ravn continues. “It became sort of an experiment figuring out what roles the others were taking and whether our different ideas would end up working together. I think the real challenge fell on Puke Wolf to piece everything together in a way that made the ending feel cohesive and powerful.”
The song’s middle movement offers a short reprieve — though the tension remains — shaped by Larsdotter’s violin. “It was a different kind of preparation from how I usually work,” she explains. “This time there was no sheet music! Emil (Vegeberg, guitar/vocals) presented me with some raw ideas, and from there, we talked through different soundscapes. For me, it was more of a visual preparation. In the beginning, experimenting with moods and sounds more than melodies.”
“We didn’t want the violin to be decorative,” adds Vegeberg. “It needed to shift the atmosphere and to create a sense of fragility and anticipation before everything breaks apart.”
Recorded and mixed by Tobias Munk Tønder and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios, “Hyena Laugh” follows the band’s earlier single “Blood.” Both tracks will appear on “Descend” early next year.
Musically, Puke Wolf sit somewhere between the chaos and restraint of bands like Daïtro, Vi som älskade varandra så mycket, and Envy — balancing sharp emotional expression with unorthodox structures and layered dynamics. “We love that people can’t always tell where the track is heading,” says Davidson. “You don’t get closure. Because sometimes there is none.”
Check out the band’s official web page and be sure to give them a follow on Instagram and Bandamp.
