Swedish underground force HAERDSMAELTA return with new single Artificial Ignorance, released August 21st via Icons Creating Evil Art. The latest track from the band's forthcoming album HAERDROCK turns its attention towards self-absorption, destructive individualism and a society increasingly comfortable with choosing ignorance – all delivered with a surprisingly cavalier rock'n'roll swagger.

Where previous single Enjoy The Feast surveyed a society happily consuming while everything around it burns, "Artificial Ignorance" asks what happens when ignorance itself stops being something to overcome and instead becomes something to embrace. Or, as HAERDSMAELTA put it:

"The song Artificial Ignorance spawned from the swamps in the forest of unsound individualism. A dark place where people drench in self-absorption. The song puts the spotlight on the transformation of ignorance into an evil intrinsic value. In short, we are all assholes and care solely about our own egos and destructive desires."

It's a suitably bleak diagnosis, but HAERDSMAELTA have never been particularly interested in delivering their social commentary as a lecture. Instead, Artificial Ignorance approaches the end of civilization with an almost suspicious spring in its step. Musically, the band describes the track as "a laid-back trip down the road to ruin" and, with characteristic self-deprecation, "basically a cavalier AC/DC-ripoff." But that only explains where the journey starts.

The swaggering rock foundation gradually opens into something considerably stranger, as epic church choirs and progressive art-rock enter the picture. What begins as a deceptively straightforward rock song grows increasingly warped until its different musical worlds collide in a manic sermon. At the centre of it all is a simple but uncomfortable idea: while technology becomes increasingly intelligent, human beings appear perfectly capable of moving in the opposite direction.

"The filth of the song condensates in a manic robotic preach about how we have detached from everything that is important and let ourselves be lured into a false and cold state of living: WE ARE ALL MACHINES THAT LEARN FROM DREAMS."

That collision between absurdity and genuine unease lies at the heart of HAERDROCK.ther than fitting neatly into one corner of heavy music, HAERDSMAELTA draw from metal, hardcore and post-punk while allowing noise, progressive rock, punk and whatever else serves the song to contaminate the mixture. The result is heavy music with a distinctly crooked grin: aggressive when it needs to be, unexpectedly catchy when it shouldn't be, and frequently funny right up until you realise what the joke is actually about.

Formed in Sweden in 2015, HAERDSMAELTA have spent more than a decade carving out their own uncompromising space in the Scandinavian underground. With HAERDROCK, the band channel that history into their most focused statement yet – confronting greed, alienation, ego, technological detachment and societal decay without sacrificing the unruly energy at the core of the band.

Artificial Ignorance captures that philosophy particularly well. Beneath its swagger and deliberate excess is a song about a culture becoming increasingly disconnected from the things that matter while convincing itself that everything is going brilliantly.

The machines might be learning.

HAERDSMAELTA aren't entirely convinced that we are.

HAERDSMAELTA – Artificial Ignorance is released August 21st via Icons Creating Evil Art. The album HAERDROCK will be released October 23rd