The Residents – Doctor Dark (2025) [FLAC 24bit/44,1kHz]

The Residents – Doctor Dark (2025)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:16:32 minutes | 452 MB | Genre: Alternative Rock, Indie Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Cherry Red Records

Doctor Dark (alternatively stylized as Dr Dark or Dr. Dark) is an upcoming studio album and “modern theater piece/opera” by The Residents, scheduled for release on CD and vinyl on February 28th 2025 by Cherry Red Records, MVD Audio and New Ralph Too, with two limited vinyl editions also expected from Psychofon Records.

The three-act opera is described as “a journey into the greasy world of euthanasia, drug abuse and an unhealthy obsession with heavy metal”, revolving around “a couple of heavy metal kids (Maggot and Mark) and an insomniac Russian physician (Dr. Anastasia Dark)”. It was inspired by an unsuccessful 1990 civil action in which heavy metal band Judas Priest were sued by the family of James Vance, a teenager who had attempted suicide by shotgun after listening to the band’s music, coupled with the life of Armenian-American pathologist and euthanasia activist Jack Kevorkian.For this 44th studio album, the Residents—the mysterious and influential avant-garde troupe that has largely kept its identity secret for the past half-century—are revisiting a pair of tabloid-ready, fear-mongering stories from decades ago. Doctor Dark is a three-act rock opera that weaves together the narratives of Dr. Anastasia Dark—a Kevorkian-like character on trial for assisting patients’ suicides—and Maggot and Mark. The latter are inspired by two young men in Nevada who, in 1985, made a suicide pact allegedly inspired by the Judas Priest album Stained Class; one of them survived but was left severely disfigured by the shotgun blast, and the families of both men unsuccessfully sued the band over claims of subliminal messages planted in the music.

“Prelude/Metal Madness,” a punishing screamo combination of industrial churn and intensely weepy strings, sets up the infection (“I hate you too!”; “I hate me too”), while “White Guys With Guns” builds to hysteria with Hitchcock strings, militaristic horns, sirens and the startling crack of gunfire: “Nothing but a gun will ever save me.” Meanwhile, an amped-up, Hard Copy-style reporter serves as a sort of Greek chorus for the album, explaining developments in ratatat breaking-news style bulletins as the dual stories unfold together. (For fictional purposes, the band facing claims of having brainwashed Mark and Maggot is called the Greasy Weasels.) There’s Mannheim Steamroller-style metal (“Maggot Remembers”), cartoon brass and horror-movie strings (“Tension”), seedy noir sax (“Contemplation”), and imperial Romanov opulence for the ballad “Remembering Mother” that sets up lore about Dr. Dark’s pregnant mother escaping Russia. “Unchanged” ping-pongs between the synthetically sunny hosannas of a mega-church praise group and what sounds like a melting speech synthesizer droning about Jesus’ love, then onto the ’80s satanic panic wail of “Kill them!/ Kill them! You’ll kill them all!”

There’s a twisted Busby Berkeley-esque number, “Ol’ Man River,” with Dr. Dark promising “My machine is your release/ My machine will set you free!” (It’s only recently been revealed, in interviews by the band’s Cryptic Corporation mouthpiece, that founding member Hardy Fox’s 2018 death was through assisted suicide.) It’s not exactly Puccini, but there is a highbrow pedigree to the grotesquerie, as Doctor Dark is a collaboration with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and conductor Edwin Outwater, also known for his work with Metallica. But, as always, the Residents continue to traffic in the theatrical Dada, gross-outs and twisted humor that have made them an influential touchstone for bands including Primus and Ween. “I feel the pain and shame coming out of me,” go the lyrics to “A Choice?,” explaining the decision to take one’s life. “I’m light, I’m happy, I’m floating … I can dance!” Whether that’s beautiful or tragic is up to the listener. – Shelly Ridenour

Tracklist:

1-1. The Residents – Prelude / Metal Madness (05:31)
1-2. The Residents – White Guys With Guns (05:06)
1-3. The Residents – Maggot Remembers (03:55)
1-4. The Residents – Tension (05:08)
1-5. The Residents – She Was Never Lovelier (04:20)
1-6. The Residents – The Gift (05:12)
1-7. The Residents – Remembering Mother (04:23)
1-8. The Residents – Contemplation (03:57)
1-9. The Residents – Survived (04:31)
1-10. The Residents – Calm Before (06:00)
1-11. The Residents – Circle of Horns (03:52)
1-12. The Residents – Unchanged (05:37)
1-13. The Residents – The Gift Keeps Giving (02:55)
1-14. The Residents – A Choice? (05:09)
1-15. The Residents – Ol’ Man River (03:47)
1-16. The Residents – Take Me to The River (07:00)

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