Sermons By The Devil : Exorcismo Electr​ó​nico

Tom Hall works in the hardware world when it comes to making music as Sermons By The Devil. The New Jersey-based musician/composer builds sonic meditations with patch cords, blinking lights, and stacks of old school pedals and tactile keys and synths. His music feels organic, like running your hands through sand and the feel of the granules as they slip their way back to the ground via your fingers. You feel the music of Sermons By The Devil as much as your hear it.

Since 2020 Sermons By The Devil has released 10 albums, each building and honing in on the essence of the project. Hall has released the tenth album titled Exorcismo Electr​ó​nico, an album steeped in the electro dread we’ve come to expect and love from Sermons By The Devil. But this time around the music goes beyond the moody electro struts and apocalyptic daydreams. The songs here dabble in electro funk, hip hop grooves, and tracks that act as an almost hypnotic, meditative tool. This is trance music for the underground; new age enlightenment for the dark ages ahead.

Since last year’s excellent Pro-Life, Hall and Sermons By The Devil have found their very distinct musical point of view. The music locked into something both visceral and intellectual. The album came from a very real, thoughtful place. It was a concept album that never got lost in its own ideas. Hall found a way to make albums with intent behind them, but never weighing them down in narrative. Exorcismo Electr​ó​nico has no specific intent or concept, yet when you hit play you get lost in its movement and almost drone-like delivery.

“Mouth Full Of Frogs” opens the record in a haze of synth noise and an almost quiet melancholy. The slow electro crawl is reminiscent of old school Oneohtrix Point Never. Then the dirty electro funk of “Voice of Doom” takes over. It’s six and a half minutes of a hip hop-flavored beat and a synth bass line that never relent. There’s touches of Pentagram Home Video in this excellent track as monotony evolves into ecstasy. “Electroshock” keeps that vibe going as Hall builds a track that has both Hancock’s Headhunters vibes dipped in touches of Suicide and Mr. Eff’s Eyes Down.

Over the course of these seven longform tracks Sermons By The Devil creates a sonic world of electro funk, doom, and meditation via circuital repetition. Finding a hard groove and minimal melody to ride along goes along way to making this such a visceral, engaging record. As the album closes on “Dangerous Advice From The Grave” you start to realize what a visceral sound experience you’ve just been on and quickly hit play to take it all over again.

Tom Hall and Sermons By The Devil are quickly becoming one of the most exciting projects in the world of heavy synth and instrumental electronic music. Exorcismo Electr​ó​nico is one of the most engaging electronic records of the year.

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There are plans to release ‘Exorcismo Electr​ó​nico’ on vinyl via the great Library Of The Occult, hopefully some time next year. Keep up with those plans and Sermons By The Devil here.