After more than two decades working behind the scenes as a producer and mixing engineer, Matthew Parisi steps out front with DEDCHIMP, and “Devour,” out September 18th, is the first chapter. The song is built around consumption in the broadest sense- resources, information, technology, attention, each other- and it positions itself as an observer rather than a preacher, holding up a mirror to a world caught in a cycle of wanting more while destroying the thing it depends on. Parisi doesn’t exempt himself from that critique either, calling the song his own confession and admitting he’s “been as complicit as everyone else” chasing the same individualistic goals he’s singing about.
Musically, it’s a dark trip-hop track with that drum sound and breakbeat-style groove, but the harmony and melodies underneath are very metal, creating a genuinely interesting and fresh fusion of sounds. That combination fits a project pulling from a wide reference pool, Nine Inch Nails and HEALTH on one end, Deftones on the other, without trying to directly recreate any of them. The result sits in a deliberately hard-to-categorize space between industrial, alternative metal, goth and dark electronic music, aggressive and unsettled but still built on real songwriting rather than noise for its own sake.
Parisi has said a chance to play with Nobody’s Wolf Child at Castle Party, one of Europe’s larger goth festivals, is what finally made this direction feel like home after a long career shaping other artists’ work. That sense of finally arriving comes through in “Devour,” a confident, genre-blurring debut that treats its bleak subject matter with real musical craft rather than shock value. With more chapters promised, DEDCHIMP looks like a project worth following closely from here.
