Nerver | Intercourse | Stress Palace | Godot
“I have no life. I don’t fucking do anything else. I don’t have any hobbies. I don’t play video games. I don’t do fantasy football. I’m just obsessed with making music and writing.”
That’s Intercourse vocalist Tarek Ahmed explaining how the acclaimed Connecticut noise rock band has averaged a release per year since forming in 2013. From their self-titled debut and 2018’s Everything’s Pornography When You’ve Got an Imagination to 2023’s Halo Castration Institute and last year’s Egyptian Democracy EP, Intercourse have kicked against the pricks, power brokers and pissants who make America “great” while tempering their outlook with a self-deprecating look inward.
Which brings us to How I Fell in Love with the Void. Ahmed and his bandmates—guitarist Sean Prior, drummer Caleb Porter and bassist Pete Stroczkowski—spent more time and money on their fourth full-length than any of their previous releases. “Usually we record in a basement, or they’re done super quickly,” Ahmed says. “This time, we figured it was a really good investment to just go into a good studio and challenge ourselves to write better songs.”
In fact, Ahmed ended up rewriting his lyrics three times. “I fucking wrote my ass off, and then I do this thing about two months out where I’m like, ‘Everything I wrote sucks, so I’m going to rewrite all the lyrics.’ Then a month before recording, my wife and I decided to split, so I tried to punch up the lyrics and make them funnier by throwing some divorce stuff in there. But I think I made it more depressing.”
Marital bliss aside, the lyrical themes on How I Fell in Love with the Void aren’t dissimilar from those on Intercourse’s 2016 EP, Pissing Into the Abyss, which features a cover illustration of a woman fucking a giant insect while an alien watches. “On the new record, there’s definitely a lot of talking about the void and that emptiness that a lot of us try to fill with food, booze or sex,” Ahmed explains. “Pissing Into the Abyss was about being so comfortable with the void that you’ll just piss there. Unfortunately, I’m super acquainted with it. But once you realize that nothing will ever fill the void, it will no longer rule over you.”
The frenzied blast and matter-of-fact diatribe of opener “The Ballad of Max Wright” sucks the listener directly into Intercourse’s pit of discontent by way of beloved ’80s sitcom ALF and a titular nod to Alice Cooper’s “Ballad of Dwight Fry.”
“Max Wright was a great actor,” Ahmed says. “He did Broadway with Al Pacino, and I’m a huge fan. If you ever watch ALF, he’s what makes it hilarious. But he hated being on the show. He resented having to play straight man to a puppet. But the song is really about dealing with scene politics, trying to get cool shows, trying to get this or that, and watching other people get everything while you get nothing—and ultimately being jealous.”
“Another Song about the Sun” roils in the self-loathing that often comes with doing what you love regardless of the value that society places on it. “That’s about how much I fucking hate myself,” Ahmed deadpans. “It’s me making fun of myself for being a 41-year-old man who will still occasionally play DIY bar shows to five people. It’s a low self-esteem, low self-worth song.”
The last song written for the album is also the last song on it. Ushered in by a cavalcade of sparking sheet-metal guitars, grinding bass and bolt-pistol drums, “Family Suicide Gun” sees Ahmed shaking his fist at the sky while knowing it won’t accomplish anything.
“I read an article about a son killing his father over the family suicide gun,” he says. “It just goes with the theme of a lot of Intercourse songs—being disenfranchised by capitalism and having to work yourself to death for nothing. And then you fucking die and you’re just buried somewhere and nothing matters. It’s about how unfair and cruel all of life is, how even relationships suck.”
How I Fell in Love with the Void was recorded by Chris Teti (The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die) at Silver Bullet Studios in Harwinton, CT. It was mastered by George Richter (Thy Will Be Done). The photograph on the album cover was shot by Sherilyn Furneaux (Portrayal Of Guilt) and features exotic dancer Cowgirl Clementine.
Ultimately, How I Fell in Love with the Void is about being on the outside looking in. “We’re music for weirdos and freaks,” Ahmed says. “I grew up as the only Egyptian kid in a little white town. I’m an outsider, and we make music for outsiders. Every time we play a faraway place that we haven’t been to before, there’s always one person there that has followed us for years and is there specifically for us. They are always the weirdest person in the room, and I love that. Those are my people.”