ALBUM REVIEW: The Burden Of Existence – Implore

Here’s an easy enough sell for you: ‘death metal CONVERGE’. That’s our elevator pitch for The Burden Of Existence by IMPLORE, and if it seems a bit rude or reductive please know that we mean it as a serious compliment. Just as the band themselves aren’t messing around here, we’re going to dive right in and say that this fourth full-length from the Hamburg-born and now Austria-based four-piece is an absolute rager. It’s out on Friday via Church Road Records, and follows on nicely from the work of bands like HELPLESS, HERIOT and BURNER to significantly strengthen the label’s case for nasty metallic hardcore supremacy.

Building on the crusty, deathy excellence of their preceding full-lengths, two of which arrived via the pretty massive Century Media Records, The Burden Of Existence is comfortably IMPLORE’s most expansive album to date. It sounds better than their previous records, with a fresh breadth and clarity lifting them somewhat out of the murk and the mire that admittedly still worked well on those earlier releases. Even the artwork seems to confirm this shift to an extent, its lighter background and splashes of pink and red a significant departure from the blacks and greys that have adorned everything else the band have put out.

Make no mistake though, this album is still absolutely feral. Just like the vulture on its cover, The Burden Of Existence won’t hesitate to roll you over, split you open and start picking at your guts. Opener Prior Void makes a good go of it from the outset, its dissonant riff swiftly erupting into unhinged blast beats and a violent mix of barked and guttural vocals. From here, the band deliver a tour-de-force in balancing death metal, hardcore and more, nailing a style which many others have ventured into of late. Whether it’s the sadistic breakdown of the title track, the chaotic Kurt Ballou-isms found in the likes of Masochistic Tendencies and Sun Deprived, or the inescapable groove of Accept The Loss, this record houses something compelling around every corner, with plenty of shifts in pace and tempo to keep listeners on their toes throughout.

Most compelling of all is the band’s powerful dual vocal attack, led by the anguished barks founder and frontman Gabriel “Gabbo” Dubko in a performance that absolutely justifies his recent enlistment as a live vocalist for Singaporean grindsters WORMROT. Adding to this however are some even more brutal gutturals which bring further cruelty and crucial variation throughout. Of course, IMPLORE are hardly the first to employ such a combo, but in leaning on it as heavily and doing it as well as they do here, it becomes easily one of the most obvious and impactful takeaways of the album as a whole.

IMPLORE also help themselves by saving some of their best material for the second half, comfortably avoiding the top-heavy feel that can characterise a lot of these records where a band’s attack wears off over time. Seventh track Failure Through Self Preservation grabs the listener with renewed vigour for example, its tight chugging verse riff providing one of the album’s hardest and most undeniably arresting moments of all, while Love Will Gradually Perish marks the record’s most expansive and dynamic offering. This one’s the furthest cry from the band’s earlier work for sure, its moodier, quieter troughs heightening its bleak, post-metal-esque peaks in a manner that one can imagine even CULT OF LUNA would be happy enough to put their name to.

Perhaps the band should’ve ended the record there, as it does feel like the album’s most climactic track, but they do deliver something similarly weighty in the form of closer The Sense Of Endings, and there isn’t really much else to complain about. As the whole ‘death metal plus hardcore but not deathcore’ genre goes, The Burden Of Existence sits in the very top drawer. It’s surely IMPLORE’s best work too, and certainly their best sounding and most ambitious. With bonus points for a sensible 36-minute runtime, this one’s an easy revisiter, which certainly helps as there will probably be at least a few of us talking about it come year end.

Rating: 8/10

The Burden Of Existence is set for release on October 28th via Church Road Records.

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