In the year 934, newly-baptized King Haakon the Good of Norway returned from England, with Benedictine monks accompanying him. Haakon was the first to introduce Christian ideas to Norway, building churches and allowing missionaries to spread the word about the faith to all who would listen. Pagan chieftains rebelled against Haakon, forcing him to renounce Christianity. However, the wheels were already in motion. Nearly a century later, Norway had become a Christian country.
And over a millennium later, what did it get those missionaries? Norway’s very own Tape Trash is releasing an album where they grapple with leaving their faith behind.
Such is the case for the album’s name, EDEN, released on Halloween 2025 through Tiny Engines. Through ten tracks, the duo of Anders Magnor Killerud and Kristofer Staxrud examine stepping out of Christianity into the secular world. With the garden locked behind them and the cherubs guarding the gates with flaming swords, Killerud and Staxrud navigate through the contradictions of life outside of faith, grieve old losses while marveling at the beauty of their lives, and explore ecstasy outside of the promises religious dogma offered them in the past.
Both Killerud and Staxrud came together over their shared admiration of Broken Social Scene, and therefore the album emits a raw emo vibe, with elements of symphonic shoegaze (Mew, Wolf Parade), early 2010s indie (Bloc Party, Nada Surf), and softer fare (Sufjan Stevens, Elliott Smith). These inspirations come from the duo’s individual musical interests, which both clash and complement, much like how it feels to come to terms with life outside of faith. The rough – blistering guitars, an onslaught of drums – come with the smooth – soft vocals yearning to be heard over the noise.
EDEN begins with “Rapture Boy”, a summary of the internal battle between holding fast to faith and rebelling against it for a chance to taste something new (“A freak scene is taking hold of me”). On the track, Tape Trash invokes the symbolism of Babylon, often used in biblical texts as the enemy of Jerusalem and the temple, and therefore, through that lens, at least, sinful secularism reduces the faithful to second-class citizens. “Rapture Boy” has the duo asking: If we give ourselves over to these new experiences, will we belittle ourselves? Will we expend everything within our souls, or – as the song suggests – “run dry”?
The next two tracks “Since 94” and “Dazzle & Deceive” dig deep into the experiences of the duo’s childhood, seeking the joyful abandon of youth and innocence (“Hometown, faded frontier/I’ve got the purest hope, I’ll drown in possibilities”) while at the same time fearing the dangers of falling back into that realm of uncertainty (“The mystery in the background lurking/The black-eyed dog barks and I keep running”). “Dazzle & Deceive” takes on a slight disco groove, marking the song’s theme of confusion and being warped by a haunting dark force threatening to distance the duo from their pasts (“You came, you saw, dazzled, defaced/Can I, can I shake you off and say her name?”)
The blistering “Horror Life!” examines that past through the lens of having been through faith and coming out on the other side, and realizing that while innocence was wonderful at the time (“Both shameless kids, glassy-eyed, quivering lips/Drunken sailors, our death kiss an evergreen apocalypse”), that carelessness threatened to warp them. Now, looking back through the veil at the past, the duo grapples with the trauma they could not realize when they were younger, and feels it eat at them (“I feel the whole thing burning down, it’s building up inside of me.”)
“17” – which falls in the middle of the album – marks the absolute nadir of faith, the point between innocent childhood and nostalgic adulthood. The band remarks how, in the eyes of God and anything related to their past religion, they may as well not exist (“Cannot replace me, cannot debase me/I’ve been dead since I was seventeen”). But they also admit that they still occupy the middle space between a surplus and a lack of faith, each of them “a dancer in the in-between”. In their teenage years, marked with confusion, they turn to vices instead of their faith, going to the extreme to test themselves and feel somewhat alive.
While the subject of “Tonya” is not clear, the duo sings to a woman who has resigned herself to a life as a reprobate, predestined to sin, incapable of reaching Heaven. But it is a happy resignation: “If it keeps me alive/Then I’ll live every single day”. On “We Will Collide”, Killerud and Staxrud seem to embody this resignation, though in a more joyful fashion, and celebratory in the fact that they are facing Hell together (“Take enough just to get up today/A true cure, a lean, mean machine/Our faith, hanging from the windowsill”).
“Raws Gueller” may sound like the name of a Friends character played by David Schwimmer, but the song has nothing to do with him. Instead, the song hints at being born again, but into what is unclear. Everything points to accepting a more secular and exploratory way of life (“No, I don’t need a homily/The mystery, I’ll let it be”). However, the duo could also be singing about seeking reconnection with their faith after letting it fade (“Take my body and take my soul/Oh, I hope we’ll grow, and you’ll be whole again”). The theme of the battle between faith and secularism makes itself known on this track.
The penultimate track, “Save Yourself”, is the only one on the album to directly invoke Jesus’s name. But instead of singing about walking with or rallying against him, the duo simply suggests that he, like them, rejected a simple life, choosing his battles and asking people to make the right choices that might lead to their salvation instead of blindly following anyone or anything. The song rises to a sonic but mournful climax, in which the duo proclaims that while years of battling with their faith has left them totally lost (“We’re sober, but so burned out/Burn it out tonight”), they don’t have to go through the darkness alone, despite the song title’s suggestion (“We’re over the moon building a bonfire for anyone who feels alone”).
“Black Kites Babylon”, the last track on EDEN, circles back to the beginning of the record in mentioning both Babylon and Eden. It gets meta in that the lyrics invoke the name of the angel Gabriel, who heralded the births of both John the Baptist and Jesus, who tells the band, “This will be the last song.” But it appears that’s a sign to leave a stage of life behind, one last track before the next era begins. It answers the question from “Rapture Boy” that in chasing new experiences, the duo will not “run dry” or destroy their souls, but instead find joy, follow their bliss, chase something that may have more meaning than blind faith. And although many would say they left Eden behind by letting Babylon influence them, perhaps the only way back to Eden is through the darkness, through the battles, through Babylon. Perhaps there they can celebrate with all their friends and together find true enlightenment: “Let’s drive our cars to rocky cliffsides/Light a fire, drink the wine/As the water rises, Eden’s waiting for us… now!”)
EDEN is an incredible sonic and lyrical exploration of faith, laid bare in a time when the world would rather push people toward the cynical (a complete rebuking of faith) or the evangelical (faith, even blind, at all costs). Instead of either side, Tape Trash chooses a realistic approach, making themselves vulnerable to attacks from both ends of the spectrum, but strong in knowing the complexities of faith and their relationship to it.
By laying out their emotions and feelings regarding their faith in poetic verse and music, Tape Trash sends a focused and fearless message: No matter where the journey takes you, through darkness or light, through pleasure and pain, or into or out of religion, one must always practice self-understanding and honesty. It may not lead toward salvation. But then again, the early Norwegian missionaries thought Christianity would save their people. Whether it succeeded is a continued hotbed for debate, and – as EDEN proves – a source for great art.
Written by Will Sisskind
