Mar 21

Mar 21 Album Review : Backxwash - Only Dust Remains (2025)

It’s hard to talk about yourself. Archaic norms of humility aside, reaching into the depths of your inmost feelings and expressing them with satisfying accuracy is as painful of an exercise as it is Sisyphean. Furious and relatable self-expression is one of the many variables that made Montreal-based rapper Backxwash a critical darling over the last five years and even her new album Only Dust Remains showcases a drastic evolution in her sound, her fearsome honesty and self-analysis bridges the gap to this new era.

Only Dust Remains features ten songs and close to forty minutes of new music. Musically, it’s overall much brighter and diverse than the albums of her trilogy like I Lie Here Buried With My Rings And My Dresses and His Happiness Shall Come First Even Though We Are All Suffering, but the introspective lyrics remain. They just take a different direction. Ashanti Mutinta has crawled out of the bleak pit of despair she had fallen into and she's roaring back to life with all the power and energy she's loved for.

My two favorite songs on Only Dust Remains are the lengthy and multifaceted Wake up and History of Violence. The embraces the light at the end of the tunnel as well as her own mortality to wide array of piano, synth and guitar arrangements. It flows like a river to different corners of Backxwash’s mind and echoes the complexity of one's journey through self-doubt and self-hatred. It's a quite personal song, but it will echo with others like all of her greatest hits. The words will cut through anyone who ever felt that way.

History of Violence is a much more positive song where Backxwash embraces her purpose as a storyteller and stands up to hostility and censorship. She raps to a lush, melancholic synthwave beat that acts as a counterpoint to her fury, creating a paradigm that captures the full essence of her creative expression. Stairway to Heaven is quite different from what she usally does. Set to a beat reminiscent of eighties power ballads, she talks about literally staring into the void and telling us what she's seen. It’s moody and enlightening.

Among my other favorites: Dissociation has more of an industrial atmosphere reminiscent of the previous records with the percussions and dirty synths with a reflection on obstacles that were overcome, love, support and the obstacles left along the way. The luminous finals is also great and reminded me of old Tupac songs for their poetic earnestness and multilayered use of the piano in the construction of the beat. It foreshadows a future where Ashanti Mutinta strenghtens that connection to herself.

I like most of the other stuff on Only Dust Remains too. It’s just a little less my thing. The two interludes 9th Gate and Love After Death also breathe with a sense of positivity and resolution through Backxwash’s vibrant and thoughtful use of synth, which are the dominant instrument to her beatcrafting here. I quite enjoyed the other single 9th Heaven that this nostalgic, late 90s New York hip-hop vibe connecting Mutinta with her rightful artistic heritage. The clever drum and bass outro to it that didn’t go unnoticed either.

Black Lazarus (I love that title) and Undesirable are two good songs of their own right, leaning more into an Afrobeat mood, which is a little less my thing. As much as Backxwash music speaks to me on a personal level, I don’t expect her to bat a thousand as some of her songs are clearly not meant for me. Her use of such sonorities reminded me again of the way the extended Wu-Tang Clan family used to do. I’m talking bands like Killarmy and Sunz of Man did back in the days. It’s interesting from a conceptual point of view

It’s always a great feeling to witness someone climb out of the dark abyss where you’ve met them and reconciling with traumatic event. This is what seems to be happening on Only Dust Remains as Backxwash cleansed her life from torturing thoughts and now dances in the dust of possibilities, slowly embracing her purpose and identity. Only Dust Remains was less of an emotional experience than its predecessors to me, but it’s a beautiful and vibrant ode to new chapters. It’ll be available everywhere on March 28th.