Columnus Metallicus: Heavy Metal for October Reviewed by Kez Whelan

Four years after their astonishingly unhinged debut, Denver supergroup Black Curse’s ungodly mutant spin on war metal is sounding even more savage on this ambitious follow-up. Whilst 2020’s Endless Wound generally favoured shorter, more direct songs, this one dishes out four dense ten-minute long behemoths without dropping any of the intensity – if anything, it cranks it up even further as spiralling epics like ‘Trodden Flesh’ rival the same sort of infinite, tantric brutality of bands like Teitanblood. The band’s rabid energy translates well to these longer, more disorientating structures, and despite the dizzying onslaught, repeated spins reveal hooks galore in ‘Ruinous Paths…’ as brute force riffs are blasted around with infectious ferocity (before it all erupts in pure sensory overload in the second half, ‘…To Babylon’, of course).

Spectral Voice drummer Eli Wendler once again handles guitar duties here, whilst further cementing his status as one of the most deranged and animalistic sounding vocalists in extreme metal today, with the wild, tortured howls he unleashes at the apex of towering opener ‘Spleen Girt With Serpent’ likely to send a chill down the spine of even the most jaded metalhead. Utterly disgusting in all the best ways, this is likely one of the most intense records you’ll hear this year.

It’s been a full eight years since Aluk Todolo’s last album Voix, which felt like a real watershed moment for the French trio, coalescing their indefinable stew of black metal, krautrock, noise and psychedelia into perhaps its most potent yet palatable form, forgoing the sprawl of records like Occult Rock to deliver their most focused and accessible outing yet. It was difficult to see where they could take their sound from there, but they’ve finally cracked it with Lux. The first few movements may feel like a continuation of Voix, all repetitive grooves, ominous cyclical bass-lines and tense tremolo guitar, but it quickly blasts off into even stranger territory. Just as the tension seems to reach boiling point by the third track, the guitar becomes more and more dissonant as the bass takes on a whole new urgency, boring its way into your skull with terrifying efficiency. 

Suddenly, there’s an abrupt stop, before the band kick back in at full bore for a series of staccato chunks of noise, ultimately arriving at an unhinged yet curiously melancholy plateau, a calm in the eye of the storm that recalls Fushitsusha as much as it does, say, Oranssi Pazuzu. Lux is a few minutes shorter than Voix, but somehow manages to feel even more enveloping and exhaustive, in the best possible way. That otherworldly fluidity that underpinned the band’s finest moments previously seems to be working overtime here, with the whole thing flowing as one organic piece. It’s good to have Aluk Todolo back doing what they do best, especially as no other band really scratches this surreal itch like they do.

Oddly enough though, Norwegian black metallers Trelldom come close on this, their first album in seventeen years, with opener ‘The Voice Of What Whispers’ delving into a similarly blackened psychedelia. It’s a pretty stark change of pace for the band most infamous for introducing the world to Gaahl back on 1995’s Til Evighet…, a raw, no-nonsense slice of ice cold black metal. The vocalist has of course dipped his toes into weirder waters since with God Seed and Gaahls Wyrd, but this album is significantly more adventurous still.

‘Exit Existence’ finds Gaahl adopting a Scott Walker-esque croon over frail, wispy sheets of guitar that feel like black metal riffs reduced to clouds of dry ice, before an explosive climax with furious blasting and wild saxophone bleats courtesy of Norwegian jazz musician Kjetil Møster, whose contributions to this record overall feel integral but never overbearing. The dramatic, yearning prog metal of ‘Return The Distance’, for example, has more in common with early Kayo Dot than anything in the black metal canon, whilst the Lynchian ‘Hiding Invisible’ teeters on the cusp between dark jazz and drone metal. A genuinely fascinating new direction for a band I wasn’t sure we’d ever hear from again, and easily the most interesting thing Gaahl’s done in years to my tinnitus ridden ears. 

Immortal Bird are another band that have never really fit that snugly into any existing subgenre, blending elements of Gorguts-esque tech-death, harrowing sludge, crusty grind and windswept black metal into a pretty unique whole. Their second album, 2019’s Thrive On Neglect, already felt like a big step up from their debut, but this third opus is easily their best yet, honing their sound whilst subtly broadening it too. Songs like ‘Plastered Sainthood’ and ‘Propagandized’ deliver some of the most crushing, crunchy riffing they’ve ever put to tape, the former a bulldozing death metal powerhouse and the latter an absolute thrash feast and perhaps the record’s most direct, visceral banger. 

What really takes Sin Querencia up a notch, however, is its emotional resonance. There’s something really haunting about the sinister, depressive melodies weaving in and out of the dissonance on ‘Consanguinity’, with the moment it breaks to dejected, cleanly strummed chords hitting like a gut-punch amidst its dizzying churn. Rae Amitay’s vocals are sounding more expressive and powerful than ever too, with the switch from savage roars to forlorn clean tones on opener ‘Bioluminescent Toxins’ or the urgent, hardcore-inspired yells on ‘Ocean Endless’ really adding an extra layer of depth. There’s a genuine darkness lurking beneath even the more robust, pit-ready moments of this record, and it’s all the better for it. 

After their monolithic 2019 debut, Sheffield’s Blind Monarch return with another thick, mossy slab of doom that manages to instil the seething misery of Burning Witch, the nocturnal grandeur of Asunder and the seismic groove of Graves At Sea. At a lean 42 minutes, it feels more streamlined than its sprawling predecessor but more dynamic too. The  Corrupted-esque ‘Diminishing’, for example, makes brilliant use of negative space with long stretches of stark, funereal chords fading into silence, before walls of dense distortion come crashing down, whilst the title track features more propulsive riffing, chugging forth with steamrollering force, before erupting into an epic, emotive lead section.

In addition to his banshee shriek, vocalist Tom Blyth now deploys some rumbling gutturals too, which feels particularly intense when combined with the more introspective and direct lyrics on ominous opener ‘Other Faces’. The Dead Replenish The Earth feels like a refinement of their debut, playing out like a love letter to a golden era of extreme doom whilst bringing the band’s own distinctive spin on that sound into ever clearer focus. 

Collapsed Skull’s 2022 debut ended up being one of my most played EPs of that year, so I’d been eagerly awaiting this full-length, and it does not disappoint. Composed of current and former Full Of Hell members, this band retains the noise influence and dizzying speed, but dispenses with both the guitars and death-grind flavour in favour of straight up, bass-driven powerviolence. Snarling caveman cuts like ‘Bullets Cast By Jehovah’ sit somewhere in between Despise You’s apoplectic rage and Man Is The Bastard’s lumbering skronk, and ‘Opioid Scourge’ and ‘Feats Of Subjugation’ seamlessly vault between filthy overdriven bass, squealing blasts of harsh noise and atmospheric hip-hop samples, with the likes of ‘Silent Breath’ bordering on plunderphonics. 

Their EP was liberally sprinkled with rap samples too, but they’ve gone one better this time, releasing an entire hip-hop mixtape alongside the album. Rather than feeling like a gimmick, you can really feel the band’s appreciation and reverence for the genre here, from the moody boom-bap of ‘Intravenous Hypnostalgic Drip’ (featuring frequent collaborator Crownovhornz) to the blown out Memphis bounce of ‘Ancient Mutilation’. ‘The Fear’, meanwhile, features Griselda affiliate Estee Nack going in over production legitimately grimier than anything on Westside Gunn, Benny or Conway’s most recent records, whilst Drumwork’s 7xvthegenius floats on the breezy, surprisingly laidback ‘Golden Mandolin’. Although most of the tape is about as abrasive and noisy as you’d expect from a powerviolence band making hip-hop, there’s a fair bit of variety in the latter half, be it MF DOOM-esque sample collages like ‘Operational Realism’ or the blissed out chipmunk soul of ‘Cell Of My Own’. 

On the subject of essential powerviolence releases, don’t miss the debut full-length from Thumbsucker. The trio were formed out of the ashes of Leicester legends Nothing Clean, whose breakup seemed thoroughly gutting at the time but has now given us two more great bands instead – the other, Sex Germs, were recently covered in Noel Gardner’s ever-excellent punk column. I’m almost surprised I’ve beaten Noel to the punch here, as truthfully, Thumbsucker’s aggro tumult is far closer to punk than it is metal. Whilst Sex Germs ventured off into more vibrant, garage rock inspired terrain, Thumbsucker take the bleak, confrontational sound of Nothing Clean and make it even more hostile and unforgiving. 

Lightspeed cuts like ‘Manifesto’ and ‘Disposable’ are perfectly structured nuggets of rage that recall the early powerviolence sound of bands like Crossed Out and No Comment, albeit with a healthy dose of UK hardcore punk influence in there too. That classic punk feel really shines through on relatively longer tracks like ‘Ruse Off’ and ‘Alone’ (‘relatively’ in this case meaning ‘still under two minutes’), with a more morose atmosphere creeping into the band’s hardcore sound (or ‘mardcore’, as they call it) as clanking basslines rumble away beneath caustic sheets of white-hot guitar feedback. 

Following their 2020 split with Nothing Clean, Swiss based grinders Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish have finally released their debut album, and it was worth the wait. Featuring former Mumakil drummer Maxime Hänsenberger and The Afternoon Gentlemen’s Elliot Smith on bass, the band have several years of grinding experience between them and it definitely shows in how effortlessly abrasive For A Limited Time sounds. The band’s sound marries the relentless, no-nonsense blasting of Nasum with the more boisterous, punky feel of UK fastcore, making for a pretty potent combo indeed on incendiary tracks like ‘Quaternary Mobs’, the intensely crusty ‘Worth It’ or the more powerviolence indebted ‘Blinkered’.

There’s a sharp sense of humour running throughout For A Limited Time that never strays into out-right goofiness, dishing out critiques of capitalism with a wry smile instead of the usual dry sloganeering. Vocalist Alessia Mercado’s paint-stripping bark is clear and well-enunciated enough that even grind newcomers will be able to figure out what she’s saying without the help of a lyric sheet – but it’s still worth pulling one up, lest ye miss out on such inspired rhyming couplets as “half price discount – not enough / must try harder, times are tough / got a big coat, gonna get some stuff” on the ferocious ode to shoplifting ‘Direkte Aktion’.

Speed freaks shouldn’t pass up the third offering from Finnish duo Concrete Winds either, who somehow manage to keep outdoing themselves in terms of intensity which each release – from the first second the aptly titled ‘Permanent Dissonance’ kicks in to the final fizzing hellscape that closes ‘Pounding Devotion’, this album is just ludicrously aggressive, bristling with a palpable viciousness whilst travelling at warp-speed the entire time (give or take the occasional bludgeoning chug riff, like the absolute monster that lurches in halfway through ‘Subterranean Persuasion’). 

Your first spin will probably be a bewildering experience, akin to being slapped repeatedly in the face with a burlap sack full of rusty nails, but repeated listens unearth a wealth of bizarre and surprisingly memorable riffing beneath the chaotic blasting – a track like ‘Infernal Repeater’ not only squeezes dozens of imaginative riffs into three minutes, but then smothers them all in flailing divebomb leads and screeching whammy abuse. Sitting right on the cusp of death metal, black metal and grindcore, Concrete Winds manage to give all three genres a swift kick up the arse with this seething monstrosity. Lovely stuff!