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Night Fever’s hardcore is immediate and unadorned, with direct and raw lyrics, devoid of social pretentiousness, ostentatious activism, or lofty artistic ambitions. It is anger and social redemption.

Salomon does not act as an intellectual or a merchant; he composes his music as if it were only for himself. Ruthlessly sincere. It is easy to imagine them as angry dogs barking just to put on a classic punk show, but the superficiality of the stereotype holds no candle to the depth that accompanies such a primal presentation.

Dead End is an album deeply tied to Salomon’s story, a story we believe is important to tell in his own words.

The album is available on vinyl, CD, cassette, and digital at:

https://nightfeverhc.bandcamp.com/album/dead-end

Night Fever – Dead End

Live with Salomon Segers

We sit at the Zeppelin Bar, fill our glasses, and we’re ready. Album in hand, we begin talking about the new work.

Notes

Christina (Indre Krig) is mentioned for the album photographs, including the cover. The bands “The War Goes On” and “Tyrant” are also mentioned. Off-camera, Salomon recommends and thanks the authors for the Raw Power album “Screams From The Gutter”, one of his favorite works.

Background: our first meeting

I first met Salomon while working on a story about the Ungdomshuset. During our discussion, I found much more than I was looking for, resulting in an interview (LINK). I was particularly surprised to discover a person very different from what had been written by some magazines more interested in generating clicks by featuring stories about drug use rather than music.

What struck me most about Salomon was his raw sincerity, without compromise or fear; the anger of someone who does not give up but also, shrouded by appearances, the sensitivity of someone who has known pain. I regretted having to transcribe our interview, as the “lost-in-translation” of writing and translation impoverished the content of our discussion.

I hope with this video interview to make amends and offer you a more complete view of this artist.

Night Fever – Dead End

When Night Fever’s new album “Dead End” was released in February 2024, I initially heard about the adrenaline-pumping launch concert, and before listening, I expected a hardcore album in the style of Vendetta.

Many melodic touches, especially in the guitar line, elevate this work technically compared to previous ones. What we hear is 100% Hardcore, but a more pronounced Heavy-Metal inspiration emerges in the solos. Despite being a self-produced work, the support of Lasse Ballade seems to have helped a lot, at least in the recording.

But the real surprise for those who, like me, have followed this band during their years of activity, were the themes captured in the lyrics. Let’s be clear: Night Fever are not delicate poets. But while in previous albums each song was the expression of amygdala hijacking, making you see red and attack furiously, this work shows a more mature coherence.

Lyrics – Dead End (inner sleeve) – part 1

Lyrics – Dead End (inner sleeve) – part 2

Anger and drugs are not new themes for this band, but in “Dead End” they are expressed with a different clarity, connecting them to pain, despair, and personal suffering.

Anger and Suffering: Life is Hell

Depressive realism is the gift, or curse, of those who have had to endure too much pain to paint reality in pink, seeing all the evil that characterizes it as it is. Growing up in a precarious, abusive, and violent environment is a reality to be despised. There is nothing to glorify in misery, not even for those who manage to escape it. On this, Salomon is clear, unrepentant, and firm: sugarcoating a wrong situation is just a miserable gaslighting. Life is hell.

From Anger to Nihilism: Rot & Dead End

I Close my eyes

I see images of burning skies

A sea of hate

Surging through us indiscriminately

It’s the furious and unapologetic anger of “Rot,” the anger we knew from the album Vendetta. It’s the anger of someone who didn’t want to give up on himself, finding in music an outlet for his rage, and in drugs a temporary escape from suffering and social difficulties. “Killing Floor” is one of the rare hardcore party moments in Dead End.

“Rot” represents the transition from the instinctive anger of previous works to the nihilism that characterizes “Dead End.” After a furious start, it folds into a hopeless nihilism that rejects judging law, God, and human society. Everything is reduced to witnessing passive evil and having another drink.

There is no light at the end of the tunnel, just enduring day by day the suffering or quitting the game. Not for nothing, the album opens with the eponymous and desperate “Dead End”, there is no hope.

The Abyss: “By The Throat” & “Waiting for Death”

“Waiting for Death” ups the ante, and “By the Throat” paints with blues and metal tones the darkest moments of Salomon’s life, when drugs become a double-edged sword, making the pain of living so acute that it spirals into paranoia and suicidal thoughts.

Anger, nihilism, and finally death. Case closed?

Not at all. There is the music, the condemnation of the rot, and the redemption of someone who changed the life that was mercilessly thrown at him.

One Against All: Lone Wolf” & “Make Them Pay”

Anger is an activating feeling; even in the hopeless track “Dead End”, Salomon has enough anger to sing “This stupidity is something I will not condone”. He makes it clear during the interview as well: he is not for laissez-faire.

“Make Them Pay” is raw and direct, not the product of a mind annihilated by ataraxia. In its own way, even “Lone Wolf” uses a perhaps ephemeral story to make it clear that Salomon is not afraid to react to injustice with shameless aggression, even if standing alone. It is the rebellion against a life too harsh and undeserved.

This brings us to perhaps two of the most autobiographical tracks: “Amen” and “Numb the Pain.”

The Destruction of Faith: “Amen”

“Amen,” at first listen, seems just an anticlerical rant in hardcore format, a cliché heard many times before. But this is not the case for Night Fever. During a previous interview, we briefly talked, off the record, about Salomon’s relationship with religion. When I found this track on the album, I was immediately struck. I never expected Salomon to want to tackle such a personal and difficult subject in his life.

Judaism and Islam are dogmatic religions: in Orthodox Judaism, Jewish mothers give birth to Jewish children (matrilineal descent), while in many branches of Islam, children are born Muslim. Salomon was born in a mixed family and he was not given a choice. He was forced to grow up in the contradiction of both faiths. It was too easy for him to discover the worst hidden behind the dictates of any creed; freeing himself from it was a significant change in his life, but the scars remain and are exhibited in “Amen.”

“Amen” addresses this unjust abuse and destroys it. On the ashes of devastation, he manages to write an almost existentialist verse: “I got my own Faith, And in it I am God.” A few words transform the emptiness of nihilism into subjective meaning.

Anger and Suffering as an Important Part: “Numb the Pain”

“Numb the Pain” is the crucial point for understanding the most intimate meaning of this album.

This track is very challenging vocally, and Night Fever has always been a band that prefers live performance over the studio. A song of such technical difficulty would be an inconvenient choice if it were not supported by a profound meaning.

“Numb the Pain” marks the beginning of the ascent after hitting bottom with “By the Throat,” an ode to anger as a useful and precious personal feeling. Although drugs have alleviated social difficulties and dulled existential pain, Salomon now perceives the cost: desensitization and the loss of part of himself.

Becoming aware of the personal richness of negative feelings, such as anger and pain, is a hard path that requires maturity and awareness. But it is from here that Salomon’s redemption takes root, who managed to say no and change a difficult and wrong life.

The loss and regained attachment to these feelings as activating and creative energy perhaps represent the deepest message of Night Fever’s Dead End album.

Details of LP Night Fever – Dead End

Tracks

	1.	Dead End 02:57
	2.	Rot 02:04
	3.	Numb The Pain 02:52
	4.	Lone Wolf 03:31
	5.	Amen 02:17
	6.	Up The Wall 02:14
	7.	Reunited 03:03
	8.	Waiting For Death 03:11
	9.	By The Throat 02:45
	10.	Life Is Hell 02:25
	11.	The Killing Floor 02:47
	12.	Make ‘Em Pay 02:25