Review by Fernando on October 13, 2024.

Black Curse was an abrupt and chaotic surprise to come out in the midst of the plague year that was 2020, a blackened death metal supergroup of sorts that stood in stark contrast to the at the time still thriving old school death metal boom, and considering this group features members from bands such as Blood Incantation, Primitive Man, Khemmis and Spectral Voice, you can pretty much anticipate music that’s as heavy and intense as it is off-kilter and bizarre.

The band’s style is firmly within black/death, and most of what you can expect can be heard as soon as you press play, unrelenting speed, punishing brutality, and an appropriately obscure vibe overall. Their 2020 debut certainly had these same elements and in here the band doubled down on their strengths, particularly the doomy influence, as this album features longer compositions. The first single and opening tracks show the band’s hand from the get-go, an overwhelmingly intense dirge that abuses the senses with both blistering speed, and an extended leaden breakdown where the band stops to a crawl and focuses on creating a disturbing atmosphere before bringing back the riffs and solos.

This combination of black, death, and doom dominates the first side of the album, and for as good as the band is with speed and aggression, the slower parts are where they truly shine and flex the most in regards to creating a strong atmosphere without losing any intensity.

The best parts of the music, of course, are the slower parts, this is where the band clearly devoted the most thought when crafting the songs, however, they didn’t slouch on the faster parts. The guitar work continues to be stellar, between the frenzied solos and hard-hitting riffs, any guitar aficionado will nod in approval when hearing the riffs in each song, and more impressively, the band adds a ton of them. The longest songs are where the riffs take center stage and work flawlessly regardless of whether the band focuses more on a fast or mid-pace.

My only real complaints here are the seeming lack of bass, or rather, how inaudible it is considering how cavernous and loud the music as a whole is. Granted the band does make it work, and in unison, all instruments deliver, especially when they come together to create unholy noise for atmosphere, but given how well-defined the guitars are and how overwhelming the percussion is, the bass becomes almost superfluous because it's the instrument that gets the least amount of spotlight. My other complaint is that while the band is masters at crafting long songs and keeping you engaged from beginning to end, the album is a bit one-note. There’s uniformity as each song blasts away, has a mid-pace break or a complete crawl, and then bursts into pure insanity. Granted this is mostly because of how long the songs are, three 11-minute songs and two that are 7 and 3 minutes respectively, and yet whilst listening to it carefully, it's clear they were split into two. The titles also give credence to this; 'Ruinous Paths…' '…To Babylon'. So while the music is excellent and all the songs are very well constructed, listening to the album from beginning to end can leave you a bit exhausted, and as if you were in an endurance test, which yes, in this niche of metal is kinda the point, but it also turns this record into a “being in the right mood” to spin it.

Overall, Black Curse successfully made their comeback while remaining as savage as ever, and with an expanded sense of musicality with their focus on atmosphere and maintaining tension with varied songwriting, even if this is a bit much and uniform, it truly shows their consistency and dedication to their sound, and I eagerly wait to see what they do next.

Rating: 8 out of 10