Sermons By The Devil : Baptism Of Desire

Tom Hall has been making albums under the moniker Sermons By The Devil for a few years now. “Official House Band of the Apocalypse” is how he describes this all hardware electronic project, and I’d say that description is right on the money.

I first came across Sermons back in 2021 with the album The Ruins of Utopia, an album that fit my overall mood post-2020. What idealized vision I had of living in this great land or ours had been deflated; devolving into infighting, screaming and tantrums regarding Covid, fake news, closed Applebees, mask mandates, and the making public safety and health into a political and social dirty bomb. Sermons By The Devil was the perfect cold, steely sound that matched my cold, steely mood.

What Tom Hall does as SBTD is articulate musically the frustrations of living in a world that doesn’t want to cohabitate, or even attempt to understand other points of view. Only wanting to dismantle what others have built over time and careful construction. The synthetic heartbeats and chromed out sheen of his analog music brings to mind both 70s electronic music pioneers, as well as the brash digitized sounds of early 80s techno and industrial. It’s both meditative and hypnotic; warm and yet distant.

It’s the eye of the universe seeing us, when we don’t want to be seen.

Past albums like Pro-Life, Dope Fiend, and Chemical Film laid out thoughtful, musical journeys exploring darker narratives while giving us at times dance floor abandon and existential trips, sometimes in the same composition. His latest, Baptism of Desire, leans into the dance aspect of Sermons By The Devil. The last stand of Free Will is on the dance floor, and Sermons By The Devil wants our last days filled with movement.

Here’s what Tom Hall had to say about Baptism of Desire:

“If Free Will is the last battleground of Youth, then Dancing is the most rebellious thing that can be done as Humans. What we dance to and how we move to those sounds is as defining as any political stand or religious creed. Sonic experimentation informs the dance as much as dance informs our musical choices. This album reflects choices that I made in the moment of creation that I hope inspire movement. Be Free Always. Never Stop Dancing.“

The seven tracks that make up Baptism of Desire are meditative, trance-like, and offer a portal to movement and syncopation. They allow you to lose yourself in the beats, buzzing synths, and forget the smoldering world just outside the door. Tracks like “Black Magik”, “Fetishes and Sacrifice”, and the kinetic “I Am Revenge” offer visceral beats that feel both synthetic and organic all at once. You can almost see dizzying lights and churning bodies in some post-apocalyptic night club losing their minds as the world burns outside the club doors.

If you’re looking for musical touchstones, think of early industrial from Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and Aphex Twin; as well as contemporaries like Isvisible Isinvisible and Entrancer(formerly Thug Entrancer). “Something is Wrong with my Head” and “Waiting For The World To End” close out this end of the world dance party on an ethereal note, the former with a techno groove while the latter on a slow-motion groove. If the apocalypse could be sensuous, it would be scored with this excellent album closer.

Tom Hall, aka Sermons By The Devil, continues to quietly amass an impressive discography of hardware-based electronic music in the garden state. Baptism of Desire is his most engaging, visceral, and tactile album yet. Close your shades, ignore the crumbling world outside your door, and lose yourself for a bit in a Baptism of Desire. No cover charge, and the drinks are on the house.