Nightmarishly good hardcore
“Go shopping. Go back to the mall. Go back to your normal lives. We’ll take care of it.” And so, following these lines, as the tense sample-laden intro depicting the underlying political infuriation behind this record transitions into "Night Terrors", listeners will involuntarily jump out of their skin as they are greeted with an intense wall of blastbeats and screams, giving way to a fast and furious minute-and-a-half of low-end balls-to-the wall hardcore. Yep, our favourite Canadians are back and their latest effort doesn’t disappoint one bit. Architects of Troubled Sleep is as raw and angry as anything Cursed have ever released: what you have here is a barrage of scuzzed-up, crust-inspired hardcore demolition that rarely lets up and lays waste to every eardrum in its path.
For the uninitiated, picture a sonic brawl between Converge and Black Flag, with Entombed butting in to throw some hefty punches – that should give you a good idea of what Cursed are about. In short: pure rock ‘n’ roll dirt. Even when this album does bring down the pace, it does so only to introduce something even more diabolical: referring, of course, to album highlight "Friends in the Music Business." Over a filthy dual-bass sludge dirge, Colohan spews out a vitriolic flood of lyricism that’s downright nasty but undeniably brilliant - culminating in a brutal wave of drums and feedback on top of which rides the wonderfully pissed-off repetition of “Don’t call me and I won’t call you”. It’s a wonderful moment that sticks out perfectly as a reminder of the pummeling foulness that made you fall in love with these four deviants’ racket in the first place.
Elsewhere, the likes of "Magic Fingers" and "Into The Hive" demonstrate that the quartet have not lost their knack for top-notch riff-heavy songwriting. And, capping it all off, "Gutters" provides a seven-minute guitar-only funeral march that, assisted by some harrowing spoken-word samples, really encapsulates how much of a bitter, nihilistic bastard this record is. Sure, it’s nothing particularly new, but let’s be honest, it’s Cursed – what more could you have possibly wanted from them? This is an intense statement of anger and frustration at the deceitful nature of the world, straight from a band that are undoubtedly on top of their game.
| Reviewer: Ned Chambers Added: April 17th 2008 |
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