(Andy Synn has a thoroughly nasty new recommendation to share with you all today)
Music, for a lot of people anyway, can be an inspirational thing.
The new Cursebinder (reviewed here), for example, seeks to inspire the listener to reflect on the disaffected nature of the metropolitan age, while the latest slab of Deathcore destruction from To The Grave (also reviewed here) hopes to inspire both rage and disgust at the depradation of the modern meat industry.
And the debut album from Black Mask?
Well, that wants to inspire you to meet the violence of the world head on, with a violent reaction of your own.
Coming some twelve years after the band made some hefty waves with their Lost Below EP, Black Mask‘s debut album (out now on Static Era Records) is Hardcore at its darkest, blending in elements of extremity from across the Punk/Metal spectrum over the course of twelve vicious, venom-spitting tracks that pull no punches and take no prisoners.
From the back-breaking stomp of “Harbingers of Deceit” and the frantic squall of “Abhorrent Creation” to the blistering blast ‘n’ churn of “Agony” and the humongous, Hvrt-esque grooves of “Hollow Soul”, the band throw in a hefty helping of wild-eyed Grind, slather on a thick layer of sludgy swagger, and inject a lethal dose of Death Metal influence into their sound, while maintaining the feral focus and all-killer, no-filler approach of their Hardcore roots.
Fans of similarly abrasive and ultra-aggressive artists like Nails, Rotten Sound, and Trap Them in particular will likely see a lot of their favourite bands in the frenzied “Monarch Detraction” and the raging, weaponised riffosity of “Tormented” (one of several tracks resurrected and re-recorded from their first two EPs), where Black Mask marry some of the harshest, heaviest guitars you’re likely to hear from a Hardcore band this year with a dash of dark, almost blackened, melody which only serves to sharpen the music’s bite ever more.
As hard as these short, sharp explosions of sonic savagery hit, however, it’s the longer, more involved compositions that arguably have the most lasting impact, with the likes of early highlight “Heathen Throes” (part grim-faced Death Grind assault, part brooding Blackened Death march), the viscerally intense, virulently infectious title-track, and the bass-heavy, doom-laden Crust-core chuggery of “Immortal” demonstrating that this older, wiser version of Black Mask have both learned a few new tricks and lost none of their old power.
Make no mistake, this is one of the heaviest, harshest, and most hard-hitting albums of the year, and while it may have taken the band 12 long years to deliver it, luckily the end result was more than worth the wait.