REVIEW: BACKXWASH - Only Dust Remains

Backxwash has electrified the experimental hip-hop scene for much of the decade now, releasing three seminal albums at the start of the decade before taking somewhat of a break. She has been known for the dark and often oppressive-feeling instrumentation and samples within her music - for example, I Lie Here Buried With My Rings and My Dresses’ includes the song ‘BURN TO ASHES’ featuring Michael Go, which samples one of the moodier moments in Godspeed You! Black Emperor catalogue. Her previous album His Happiness Shall Come First Even Though We Are Suffering was surprise-released on Halloween 2022, and quickly became the perfect soundtrack for its season - this body of work has garnered her plenty of acclaim in the experimental and industrial hip-hop world, being held in a similar regard to clipping. or Injury Reserve/By Storm, with a queer twist.

Her music has always tackled queer themes with a dark and claustrophobic backdrop, though this newest album, Only Dust Remains, peels back a layer and reveals some brightness. First single ‘WAKE UP’ features some of her most impassioned vocals yet, as she repeatedly yells “Wake the fuck up!” before a beat switch - it marks two distinct points in the song, the second section feels significantly more reflective with its more stripped back instrumentation compared to the pounding drums of the first five minutes of the song. The lyrics still cover heavy topics, with themes of self-loathing throughout. Second single ‘9th Heaven’, on the other hand, also faces death, but with a confident feel to her delivery - “I feel so motherfucking free” is the line she chooses to close her vocal with, and she does it over a chorus of “The drummer coming”, accompanied by a rush of percussion to outro the song on a bombastic note.

These two singles were already fantastic, and as it turns out, emblematic of the quality of the album as a whole. Opener ‘Black Lazarus’ is a slow-burner that rises into a sea of synths, with each snare hit feeling like a bomb exploding. With lines like “As they… pray for me, but ain’t nobody here saving me”, it does feel like a continuation from her previous work, as she not only looks inward, but also outward, with her frustration directed at the lack of action in places like Gaza, which comes up again later on the song ‘History of Violence’. For the last two minutes of the song’s runtime, she reflects on the plight of the Palestinian people and reactions to it. “Never mention the victims or you’re in league”. It’s a harrowing picture of suffering she manages to paint in this song.

Elsewhere on the album, she continues to bend genres, embracing a shoegazey side on  ‘DISSOCIATION’. Her and Chloe Hotline’s vocals fit the ethereal, noisy instrumentation perfectly despite their respectively aggressive and graceful approaches. The album ends on “Only Dust Remains”, a breather after the relative intensity of the previous few songs, driven by a piano melody and choir towards the end, repeating “away from me” - it’s a strangely euphoric way of ending a fantastic album. The shift away from more metal-influenced instrumentation might be a surprise to many listeners, but she entirely sticks the landing, showing off a wide range of depth in the instrumentation on display, as well as these quite abstract and poetic lyrics.

Score: 9/10

Only Dust Remains was released on March 28th 2025 via Ugly Hag.

Words: Jake Leonard

Photo: Méchant Vaporwave