HAYWARDxDÄLEK: HAYWARDxDÄLEK

While December was once deemed a fallow period for new releases, this decade has flipped the script. There are various factors behind this – one being Record Store Day and its tango with aggressive capitalism, whereby it has pushed independent labels down the pecking order at the pressing plant, forcing many of them to push their releases back to the later months of the year.

Coupled with the fact that there’s now more new music than there’s ever been – Bandcamp a catalyst for anyone around the world to share their creations in real-time – it’s these factors that make December just as vital as any other month for new releases. And the best of them in 2025 comes via the sonic boom between This Heat’s Charles Hayward and Dälek’s Will Brooks, who join forces for a brutal collision from their respective South East London and New Jersey locales.

On their debut, HAYWARDxDÄLEK, the pair surge into the maelstrom, illuminating the cruelty in this world, largely brought about by conflict and greed, as world leaders continue to protect their own interests with little concern for anyone outside the paradigm of power.     

Hayward pivots from avant-grade to hip-hop with ease and militancy. Brisk, inventive percussive freak-outs that sound as sharp as he ever has, and alongside the most crucial voice in conscious rap since the turn of the century in Brooks, the pair combine for a dark harmony indicative of these times. Increments and later with Antiphony, two gruelling instrumentals underpinned by the hiss and clamour of Hayward’s hi-hat assault, as Brooks’ atmospheric soundscapes are like a black nightmare from the void.

It’s a broken world and Hayward and Brooks face it head on by exposing even wider cracks in it. Between the Word and the Drum, a droning assault of conscious rap with Brooks leading the charge with wordplay that moves at flick-knife speed (“Between the word and the drum lies the whole balance”). And there’s more of it during Breathe Slow. With bass weight that rivals The Bug, Brooks unveils yet another poignant snippet (“Help we finding common ground? If most won’t even speak to me”) and combining with Hayward’s symbol crashes that shatter like metal on bone, it’s HAYWARDxDÄLEK’s watershed moment.

Then there’s the dark passenger that is Salvage. Like a rumbling storm that ebbs and flows with hypnotic verve, it’s two artists completely locked in and going to work. Purity smashed into pain, and where the latter is concerned, Asymmetric sees Brooks dropping another load of truth bombs (“Truth’s been bastardised… Ignorance been glamorised”).

The pair also travel down new paths on HAYWARDxDÄLEK. Sojourn, a spur-of-the-moment improvisation as samples and synths weigh the song down in fresh gloom with Hayward and Brooks taking post-rock into new corners. 

They don’t stay there for long, and it’s As Children Chant where the pair reach a point of no return. “Generational pain built with compound interest” and “Shifting narratives twisted till little reflects reality / Their lies sharpen this killers mentality”, verses that frame oppression and atrocities in much the same way Moor Mother did alongside SUMAC earlier this year on The Film. Will the hate abate? Through the briars, is there actually a path to peace? Amid the turbulence, these are the questions that Hayward and Brooks ask on HAYWARDxDÄLEK

A truer line hasn’t been delivered in 2025 than Brooks’ on As Children Chant: “We exist in a flawed design,” he laments, and it’s this snapshot that confirms that nothing will change unless the system does. Chaos, nothing but a logical conclusion in a world that continues to collapse by our own making. But even despite this, Hayward and Brooks still find deep levels of catharsis in it, which is essentially the result when the core of artistic expression is reached.

HAYWARDxDÄLEK is out now via Relapse Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.