The Hanged Man is the exciting new project of Stockholm-resident and psychedelia-enthusiast Rebecka Rolfart. Active as she’s been in the world of music, you may already be familiar with some of Rolfart’s previous work, but where former bands Those Dancing Days and Vulkano indulged in sunnier indie-pop sensibilities, The Hanged Man takes a sharp, decisive turn towards the darkness. ‘Invincible Trees’, the lead single from The Hanged Man’s upcoming EP Lord Have Mercy (out on Friday via Kning Disk), is a perfect example of this simultaneously unsettling and electrifying new direction. It is telling that the title of this forthcoming EP should be so haunting and overtly religious, for there’s an undeniably pagan, even evil, quality about the ominous music within. That said, Rolfart’s music is, perhaps against every expectation, extremely groovy. In truth, with its searing energy, ‘Invincible Trees’ is at times even reminiscent of the blistering dance-punk back catalogue of DFA Records. To be sure, this is a potent broth of disparate musical ideas - a track that goes on to climax with a thrillingly ferocious psychedelic jam, culminating in a wash of subterranean howls roaring into the abyss. Yet it must be noted that for all its chaos, there is a profound clarity in the darkness, with lyrics that take a rather enlightened and unexpectedly positive attitude towards death. In this light, the darkness in ‘Invincible Trees’ no longer seems to represent ideas of horror or demise, but of change, of transformation, even of liberation. -KJ