Amateur Childbirth is the solo project of Brisbane musician/fringe dweller Ivan Matthew Hicks and his dark take on caustic and apocalyptic acoustic pop. In the past the anti-troubadour has written songs about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and Countess Bathory being conquered by virgins.His third LP Your Afterlife Is Cancelled, to be released August 25 through London label Blackest Ever Black, continues his unapologetically bleak look into the human condition and is billed as his Christian Rock album. The label claims that the album makes "the Bible's rampant sadism pales in comparison".The minimalist and dour folk-rock arrangements are quite beautiful in their simplicity such as on "All Doomed" when Hicks sings about a retirement home where he once worked as a pile of detritus and the entire population of the world infected with hepatitis. If songs about pestilence and perversion are your thing then Your Afterlife Is Cancelled is a must get.
'Your Afterlife Is Cancelled' is available August 25 through Blackest Ever Black.Image: Blackest Ever Black