ALBUM REVIEW: Devourer – Skaldic Curse
SKALDIC CURSE are a band that boasted some of the most impressive musicians in the UK black metal scene within their ranks, with members of FEN, AKERCOCKE and ANTIGONE featuring in the line up at the time that the band sadly called it quits back in 2011. Their last album, Devourer, recorded in 2009, did not see the light of day until 2013, and as a result has, in spite of its brilliance, remained a relatively obscure record. Luckily for fans of progressive black metal, those lovely people at Apocalyptic Witchcraft have finally put this album out properly on CD, to mark the ten year anniversary of the albums initial creation. And it’s great that they did, because this album is a tour de force of great, unorthodox black metal.
Last Humanoid Howling heralds the start of the album with a soaring, powerful track with plenty of jarring hooks and expert, technical guitar playing which really cements the progressive leanings of SKALDIC CURSE early on. The drums set a machine gun like pace, and the vocals carve a visceral, feral note through the mix. It’s a great track that manages to cram in more time changes, guitar tones and a wider range of vocals than many bands manage to muster on a full album. Devourer‘s titular track makes for a more subdued, yet still fierce and unflinchingly avant-garde, offering, with a more measured pace and simpler, though still incredibly impressive, musicianship dominating the tracks sound, making for another brilliant song that raises the bar even further.
After the more acerbic and aggressive End-Earth,the more eerie, eclectic and ethereal hooks of Bloodstained Asylum and the robust, ferocious black metal trappings of Psy-War Approaching have all made their presence known, we get to what is likely the stand out track on the album, Impact Winter; opening with a hypnotic guitar motif, a dense, sludgy bass line marks the point when the song descends headlong into a whirlwind of vicious, dizzying riffs, not only make it one of the more memorable songs on the record, but also easily one of its more cacophonous and chaotic offerings as well. The vocals, as always, tear a razor sharp and grating path through the mix, and complement the more visceral edge of the music extremely well. It’s got some of the most impressive performances on the whole album, with the lead guitars in particular excelling and taking the musicianship to a new high.
The sprawling and epic Abduction Void with beguiling, atmospheric guitars, tar thick bass hooks and authoritative drumming, is another definite album highlight. It’s a great, slow burning offering that gradually gathers momentum and speed, getting more and more intense and rabid as it progresses towards its climax, and in spite of its lengthy running time, it manages to be another great piece of music that it’s hard not to thoroughly love. With the vocals being more of less absent from this album for the most part, it allows the music to take centre stage, something that really helps to set it apart from the other eight tracks in a big way, and make it endure long in the memory, even after the first listen.
Self-Replicating Armageddon Assembler is a solid, but not particularly remarkable, track that blends darker tones and more ferocious guitar playing to great effect. It’s a great song, but doesn’t feel up to par with the rest of the songs on the album, leading the listener into the final song on the record, Torus. This is an amazing, energetic and intricate track that is as diverse as it is brilliant. It’s a far more mellow and sublime piece of music than what’s come before, with some solid Rock guitar hooks that distinguish it from what has preceded it, with even the vocals eschewing the gutturals and hellish howls that have characterised the rest of the record. It still has it’s more intense and vicious moments, but this side of SKALDIC CURSE is far less prominent. It’s a fantastic way to bring an equally fantastic album to a close.
Devourer is a truly excellent album from start to finish, and it’s great that it has finally seen the light of day. The musicianship is world class, and there’s so much on offer on this album in terms of the scope of its sound and style, striking the right balance between progression and extremity, that it’s incredibly hard not to love, or at least appreciate, each and every song on here. Every track is great in its own right, and even the weakest songs on here would easily be the stand out track for many other bands. It would be great to see SKALDIC CURSE reform somewhere down the line and release more music of this calibre.
Rating: 9/10
Devourer is out now via Apocalyptic Witchcraft Recordings.