In a nod to the iconic line from the film Stand By Me, the album's opening track and
first single, "Where Losers Go to Die," kicks off with frontman Tarek Ahmed
bellowing: "Hey man, want to see a dead body?" What follows is an eerie The Jesus Lizard-esque dirge that slips into a Neanderthal breakdown, serving as a perfect introduction to Intercourse's world. Choosing brutish simplicity as their weapon ofchoice, the band prowls the shadowy fringes of noise rock and hardcore, a zone also
occupied by the likes of Chat Pile and Couch Slut. "We’re too weird for a lot of the
hardcore scene and too aggro for the weird scene," states Ahmed.
The band's sole founding member, Ahmed wields a singular vocal style that smashes the
line between the sublime and the ridiculous. With a strangulated roar, almostcartoonish in its unhinged glory, Ahmed spouts painfully direct, often poetic, lyricsabout the pain of existence. His songs reference a litany of characters from his own past,
growing up in the backwoods of Connecticut as an Egyptian kid in the post-9/11 years,and from the annals of true crime – hitman Richard "The Iceman" Kulkinski, bulldozer enthusiast Marvin Heemeyer, and Bjork stalker Ricardo Lopez, to name a few. A 2021
write-up from No Echo hailed Ahmed as "a brilliant wordsmith I aspire to someday
match in skill."
Of the album's first single, "Where Losers Go to Die," Ahmed states: “The song is about trying to fight your own existential dread and realizing how futile it is. Life sucks, it only< gets worse, and all anyone will offer you is clichéd advice."
The song's official music video is a lo-fi slice of unease that matches the song's anxiety to a tee. "I directed the video and our guitarist Sean edited it," says Ahmed. "We were
going for a 'Blair Witch' vibe and I love how the vibe matches the album art."
Halo Castration Institute is Intercourse's ninth release in less than a decade. The album was recorded at Dead Man’s Blade studio in New Britain, CT by Ryan Pelegano, and was mastered by Mike Moschetto.The cover art was created by Madds Ellis, in-house illustrator for Last Podcast on the Left.
Tracklist:
1) Where Losers Go to Die
2) I Need Saturday Off So I Can Play a Teenager's Bedroom
3) The Passion of Jesus Christ Allin
4) The Iceman's Tears
5) Heemeyer's Hammer
6) My Own Personal 9-11
7) George Soros Funded
8) Skin Walker Brothel
9) Hollywood, Florida
10) Kabristan
