ALBUM REVIEW: Ascension – Unfurl

At first glance it is easy enough to think you’ve got the making of UNFURL. The initial temptation with their third full-length Ascension is to place the Pittsburgh-based four-piece somewhere among the likes of CULT LEADER, FULL OF HELL and HELPLESS as one of those bands who seem intent on snuffing out the very sun. But while on one level their brand of metallic hardcore flecked with all manner of sludge, death, grind, black metal, noise and more does provide a similarly miserable thrill to that of the groups mentioned, those familiar with the band’s previous efforts will be well aware of their ability to surprise and evolve – something which is on full and glorious display here.

First of all though, they really do dole out some truly unhinged levels of violence. With the album described as “the apocalypse for an audience of one”, opener Coiled Serpent introduces listeners to whatever that means and to be honest it’s an instant and easy sell – well, if you like being absolutely obliterated that is. A six-and-a-half-minute steamroller of thick sludgy riffs, angular, dissonant guitar lines, razor sharp blast beats and a gruelling range of harsh vocals, it’s maddeningly heavy, and very much where UNFURL plan to stay for a while so you may want to jump off now if it’s all a bit much.

Presumably having thinned the herd to only the most masochistic of listeners, the rest of the first half of the record maintains a similarly antagonistic bent. Most impressive within this though is the way that UNFURL manage to remain so consistently compelling in their cruelty when many other bands might lose their listeners to numbness and fatigue. Little menacing breaks at the end of most of these early tracks help with this a lot, as do sensible choices like placing the dissonant blast fest of Burning Question directly in between the suffocating sludge which closes Trembling In The Threshold and the similarly lumbering This Empty Planet. Each mode of attack chosen by the band is as oppressive and difficult as any other, and taken all together they make for quite the nightmarish experience.

The thing is though – and the intro might have given this away – Ascension doesn’t stop there. Just when it might finally run the risk of overwhelming its listeners, sixth track Hyperviolet Estuary arrives pretty much dead in the middle (in terms of runtime at least) to pull the record into strikingly more melodic territory. It’s still as sharp and fierce as anything, but it carries more of an expansive blackened death metal feel reminiscent of something like one of those recent WAKE albums, for example, and there are even some clean vocals in the mix which is honestly jaw-dropping considering where the album was five minutes previously. Even more of this follows in the closing pair of Entity Reunion In The Sky and Longitudes & Leylines, both still plenty violent, and yet with lengthy runtimes that permit further forays into hypnotic melodic prog

At the moment though there is a risk that all this portrays Ascension simply as a record of two halves, which on one level it is, but there is also a clear and crucial sense of intent here that makes this album feel far more like a proper journey than a band just doing one good thing after another. Granted, its more melodic and expansive turns may come as a surprise at first, and yet there’s something about the way they’re introduced and executed – some combination of the timing and the fact that even these later tracks maintain a real ferocity and intensity and just a slight raw edge to the sound – that makes it surprisingly easy to keep up with the band here. 

Ultimately maybe all this comes down to the simple fact that UNFURL are just as good at dragging listeners through the album’s early and most crushing lows as they are at lifting them to its most breathtaking melodic heights later on. It’s not like they’re great at one thing and half-decent at another; this is a band who have a frankly staggering list of genres nailed down, and remarkably they seem to have found a way of tying them together in a manner that doesn’t make a complete mess. Obviously there is far too much extremity on offer to say Ascension has ‘something for everyone’, but if you are already on board with these more violent strains of music then no doubt you will be deeply impressed by the range and quality of what’s on offer here.

Rating: 8/10

Ascension is set for release on June 2nd via self-release.

Like UNFURL on Facebook.