Cruelty: No Divine Intervention Here

CRUELTY have just released their debut album There Is No God Where I Am on Church Road Records (it’s out on April 30th) and it’s a punishing, brutal and rewarding listening experience that shows exactly how far the band have come as a band. The album still has that raw edge that the band has always maintained but the songs here show just how far the band have come when it comes to crafting their tracks with the intensity of hardcore and the heaviest riffs CRUELTY have ever put out.

The punishing intro to the album entitled simply An Introduction is the perfect way to start things off and after a wail of feedback, it segues into the A Lie That Makes Life Bearable, a discordant blast that demonstrates exactly where CRUELTY are as band today and from then on in, it sounds like a lesson in metallic hardcore.

As we journey through the album, we also talk to guitarist Gareth Davies about the creation of the record as he relates how excited he is to be getting the album out there. Seeing that There Is No God Where I Am is the debut album by the band following a demo and 7” releases, it seems apt that Davies is excited to be getting it out there. “We’ve been sat on the songs and we’d done demo versions so we have sort of known how it’s going to turn out for ages. It just seems like a long period of time when you think August to April is probably just like a standard cycle for a release, but yeah, we’re looking forward to getting now. It’s been so long since the last proper release as well. I’m very pleased, I’ve never done an album before so it will be nice to have something physical, I mean we’ve done 7″‘s but this is more, this is eighteen months hard work physicalised.”

While the album cannot be described as anything other than crushingly heavy especially on songs like Spiritual Road, Mine, To The Ground and Dead Culture in particulate, Davies believes that the album marks the start of a new chapter in song-writing for CRUELTY and how they are growing as a band. “I don’t think it’s as heavy as the older stuff. It’s not as frantic. I think that comes with song-writing, you learn to write songs better as a unit and what the band should be like.” This is certainly evident on the album’s title track which concludes the album, a song which features a stirring violin led middle section that splits the track up and elevates it with an almost post-metal vibe and gives it an anthemic quality, and there are epic flourishes like this throughout the album, which adds to the power of the music.

Although the production on the album is stellar, it still retains a rawness and a definite live feel to it and that suits CRUELTY down to a tee, that mixture of their elevated song-writing combined with the in your face intensity you would get when you witness the band in their live habitat. The band recorded with Ian Boult at STUCK ON A NAME (“we did the first EP with him. He’s just so laid back, he doesn’t push you. He’s not one of those people, that’s like you’ve got to do that take fifteen times again and also he’s very organic”). Taylor Young mixed the album (“I really liked all the releases he’s done, like obviously NAILS, that always sounds great”) and it was mastered by Brad Boatright and that input gives the songs on the album that even more intense sound.

Gareth also mentioned that he had a certain CONVERGE guitarist in mind for working on the record but it ultimately didn’t ultimately come to fruition “I was speaking to Kurt Ballou about doing it, but it was just prohibitively expensive and then I thought, if you’re going to spend that amount of money with someone you’d want to be in the room, you’d want to go and have that experience of recording.” While that would have been sounded great, what CRUELTY have produced with There Is No God Where I Am is a stunningly intense album packed full of metallized riffs and breakdowns aplenty all while retaining an all out feeling of hope amongst the despair. From start to finish that and the fact that this is only the debut album from the band means that there is a bright future ahead for them.

Even though they have just released this debut album, CRUELTY are already thinking about the future and a new record. “We think it will be called Salvation and we’ve got about eight tracks, but this this time we’re going to do it differently. I want to go in with three or four songs that are fully formed and then the other six or seven or eight, let’s do them there,” Gavin says. “See how that record works together and if it doesn’t try something else because with this record we were in a rush to get it done, whereas we’re not working towards a timeframe with the second album. If it takes us a year, it takes us a year.”

The new record will also coincide with the long awaited return of live shows so as long as plans don’t change, hopefully there will be a chance to hear these new songs played live very soon as the band have gigs arranged for Saturday 24th July at Muthers Studio in Birmingham (an LP release show for No God Where I Am with RENOUNCED and REALM OF TORMENT amongst others) and an appearance on the Sunday (August 1st) of UKHC Returns at London’s New Cross Inn. When asked if he is excited for the return of live shows, Davies replies, “yeah, I think the first show that goes ahead, people will go off like instantly for the first band. I feel like whoever gets lucky enough to plan that first show whenever it’s allowed, whoever that first band is.”

CRUELTY are well versed in the live arena and it will be great seeing them take to the stage again and have played gigs all across the UK and abroad, and have played some memorable ones. “Well, I like gigs when no one’s there. I like that. Like we never, we never played to big crowds but smaller shows where there like seventy five people in a sixty person room and they’re the best ones when it’s just rammed. I love that sort of stuff. We played in a shed in Belgium on tour and it was, I swear to God, the hottest day ever recorded in Belgium. We played this guy’s shed, a guy called Laurens who plays tour guitar for BROKEN TEETH. His family have got  this house in Belgium and he’s got a shed at the back of it called the beatdown. As soon as you walked into the shed, you’re already sweating. We were playing and they have no lights, so it’s sort of playing in the dark, we couldn’t see when we were playing, I could barely see because all you could really see was the amp lights, so you’d just see people flying past your head! After we played, I went outside to get some air and you just saw the the walls of the shed bending when people were getting thrown about!”

The last year has been a difficult one but the return of live shows and the release of this album will see CRUELTY return stronger than ever as is the case with the UKHC scene which despite everything that had gone on and the lack of shows, has given it a back to basics approach and a renewed sense of community. “I think because UK hardcore is sort of a smaller scene, even though there’s been no gigs, I think it’s stronger. There’s been loads of people putting zines out. I know my mate did an e-zine about BULLDOZE and he’s like, when would I have the time to do that generally? I like that. There’s those people who’ve been digging out old flyers, old photos and putting that Instagram pages together and it’s just been good to see that.”

There is No God Where I Am is out now via Church Road Records.

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