Satan Club

Following the recent success of deathcrash’s critically acclaimed debut album Return, lead guitarist Matthew Weinberger recently announced his new solo project, Satan Club, with an album of songs released this summer on cult-favourite indie label, Warm Laundry Records.

Satan Club’s focal point is Weinberger’s finger-picked guitar - exclusively acoustic, in contrast to the crunch and distortion of his playing in deathcrash. Weinberger draws on his love for the Americana of guitar pioneers such as John Fahey, Leo Kottke and Jim O’Rourke, taking a traditionally American style of music and making it personal to him. Part folk and part film score, the album is emotive throughout with a narrative-like quality to its progressions.

Writing songs on a nylon string guitar in his bedroom during lockdown, Weinberger’s surroundings became a powerful source of inspiration for him. Rotherhithe, where Weinberger lives in South East London, is an area steeped in history, located on the banks of the Thames and formerly home to shipyards, docks and wharves. Separated from his bandmates, Weinberger was also forced to look at songwriting from a new perspective, with himself and his guitar at the forefront. Through self-discovery and introspection, Weinberger created something intensely meaningful out of an otherwise unwelcome change in circumstances.

The LP brings together all of Weinberger’s growth and development through his playing with deathcrash, whose debut album featured one of his solo compositions, Matt’s Song - the first evidence of what he is capable of when left alone with a guitar. Weinberger reveals a tenderness and vulnerability that retains all of the emotion that deathcrash conveys through noise and distortion, while relying instead on acoustic instruments and natural sounds. This marked change in emphasis is evidenced by Weinberger’s choice to omit bass and drums from his upcoming album altogether.

Another defining feature of Satan Club is the delicate string accompaniments recorded by several of Weinberger’s close friends. The most notable collaborator is Slow Dance’s multi-instrumentalist Aga Ujma, known for previous collaborations with London trend-setters such as caroline and Broadside Hacks, who appears on songs Buck and Moth. The album also features deathcrash’s Tiernan Banks playing guitar on Buck and Redriff.