ALBUM REVIEW: No Volume – Cel Damage
California mathcore outfit CEL DAMAGE are a lot to take in on multiple levels; for starters, their new album No Volume is their 12th release in a decade, their discography largely comprising a load of EPs and other bits that generally confine their whirlwind chaos to ten minutes or less, albeit with 2018’s Making Ours looking suspiciously like a full-length despite this new effort being billed as their debut in some places. Discogs, Bandcamp and Spotify all offer slightly different accounts of what’s what and where it all goes, to the point that it’s best not to get too bogged down in the details and just say with certainty that this one is definitely a full-length and it’s out this Friday via the firmly in form Silent Pendulum Records.
And then there’s the music. To refer to CEL DAMAGE as mathcore as we did at the beginning is only really helpful shorthand for all that’s crammed into No Volume’s 17-minute runtime. It’s a wild, unpredictable listen, with bits of grindcore, sass, screamo, noise, metalcore and even deathcore all sent spinning around the listener’s head as the band run from one track to the next with breathless and bewildering momentum. Pulsating dance beat of opener I’m Taking The Pins Out aside, there aren’t really any intros or interludes, with the band preferring instead to launch themselves directly into the fray to the point that most of the songs seem to roll straight into each other as though one track can hardly wait for the previous to finish.
As comes with the territory then, No Volume does require multiple attentive listens before one can really begin to make sense of it. You could stick this on in the background and if you’re into those generally more extreme takes on hardcore you’ll have a nice enough time, but you probably won’t remember any of it if that is your approach. Upon closer inspection one of the most immediate takeaways from the record is its abundance of genuinely huge breakdowns. Not hugely common to this more angular and chaotic vein of metallic hardcore, CEL DAMAGE are clearly more than happy to drop a real crusher when the need arises, with these generally providing some of the album’s easiest moments to grab onto, fleeting though they may be.
Even as it does start to get its hooks in, No Volume stands out more in specific parts or sections rather than it does in individual tracks; the sass of They Said I Could Go To The Dance perhaps, or the obscene deathcore breakdown of George Wilson – in both cases the presence of featured guests likely contributing to the different flavours these tracks take on. But this is not to discount the talents of the band themselves, or indeed the quality of the record they’ve made here. No Volume is so densely packed with violent and chaotic ideas that even its fleeting runtime will be far too much for some; but for others, those partial to the work of bands like HEAVY HEAVY LOW LOW and .GIF FROM GOD, for example, this album will insist on repeated listens and reward those who oblige by finding something new that sticks every time.
Rating: 7/10
No Volume is set for release on July 14th via Silent Pendulum Records.
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