Artist: Netherwilds

Album: Peasant Rising

Label: King Volume Records

Release Date: October 9, 2026

Genre: Avant-Garde Metal

Every once in a while, an album comes along that makes you wonder what the hell you just listened to, and then immediately makes you want to hear it again.

Netherwilds’ Peasant Rising is one of those albums.

The easiest description I can come up with is Mr. Bungle crashing into Nine Inch Nails while Monty Python narrates a medieval peasant uprising. Even that doesn’t completely explain this thing.

Created by Tokyo Police Club’s David Monks and his dirt-covered peasant alter ego Worm Chewer, Peasant Rising takes what could have easily remained an internet comedy character and turns it into a surprisingly complete musical world.

And it gets weird fast.

Thrash, industrial metal, hardcore, punk, doom and medieval folk sounds are thrown together across 22 tracks. Nine short “Scroll” chapters connect the songs and push the story forward, making the album feel more like one continuous medieval adventure than a conventional collection of songs.

Normally, that many interludes could destroy the momentum of a record. Here, they’re part of the fun. They give you just enough story before throwing you back into whatever musical insanity Netherwilds has waiting next.

That’s where Peasant Rising really shines. It refuses to stay in one place.

“Helm Yeah” is frantic and ridiculous. “Dungeon Song” shifts between folkier moments and considerably heavier territory. “The Fall” feels bigger and more theatrical, while “Heretic” takes the album in yet another direction. By the time “Wickermech” arrives late in the record, Netherwilds is still finding new ways to make the concept stranger and heavier.

Somehow, it doesn’t feel like a pile of unrelated ideas.

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There is a Mr. Bungle-like unpredictability to the way styles can change without warning. Other moments have the mechanical, uncomfortable edge I love about Nine Inch Nails. Then Monks will completely change direction with some absurd medieval dialogue or a song about peasants, armor, dungeons or a missing goat.

That’s where the Monty Python comparison really hits for me. The album understands how ridiculous its world is and completely commits to it anyway.

But Peasant Rising isn’t just a joke.

Underneath all the medieval insanity is a story about people at the bottom getting tired of being treated like they don’t matter. Hunger, labor, class and inequality are everywhere in the story, only they’re delivered through peasants, kings, castles and an increasingly pissed-off Worm Chewer.

That balance is probably the album’s biggest accomplishment. It can make you laugh without turning the music itself into a joke.

There are also songs here that work outside the concept. “Ballad of Sir Gregory” is strangely catchy, “Siege Proof Hovel” is pure ridiculous fun, and “Return the Goat” feels like the natural payoff to everything Netherwilds has been building toward.

Most importantly, Peasant Rising never sounds afraid of being weird.

There are plenty of records that mix genres. This feels more like Netherwilds threw the genres into a medieval catapult just to see where they would land.

It shouldn’t work nearly as well as it does.

Peasant Rising is chaotic, heavy, funny, theatrical and completely committed to its own insanity. It’s one of those albums where trying to explain it to someone is almost as entertaining as listening to it.

And somehow, it’s pretty damn great.

9/10