If you think about it, there’s far more heavy music around for general consumption nowadays then there was a few years ago. Even though they are a truly execrable band, the fact that Slipknot managed to attain a number one album is surprising – in a world of handily pre-packaged pop, how did an album with practically no tunes whatsoever on it beat off boy bands and commercial rock? Now the heaviest of music is acceptable as bands like Trencher and Norma Jean rise through the ranks, and Revelation Records’ Curl Up And Die give us this teeth-clenchingly heavy EP.
Trouble is, where bands like .hopesfall. succeed, CUAD are handicapped by their lack of innovation and exciting ideas. Only on the final track ‘God Is In His Heaven, All Is Right With The World’ do they start throwing some curveballs with the rolling rhythms and powerful guitars provide an energy and punch that is absent on the rest of the EP. The vocals are far too low in the mix (a fact that reads true throughout But The Past…) and as such it sounds as if Mike Minnick is in a separate room to the rest of the band. Frustratingly, ‘God Is In…’ is a fantastic post-hardcore track, swerving confidently from grimy riffs to harmonic interludes, but the rest of the EP simply does not live up to it.
Having said that, you’ve got to give it to them for the song titles. ‘Nuclear Waste? Bring That Shit. (We Want A State Full Of Radiated Super Heroes’ is sludgy grindcore at it’s heaviest, unintelligible lyrics vomited over an atonally crunching verse before slipping into a bored-sounding light section. Unfortunately the pervading image is that of a band comfortable to swap good ideas for sheer heft, and while there are a couple of strong moments on ‘If This Band Thing Doesn’t Pan Out We’re Joining The Army’ they’re repeated ad infinitum until their effect is fatally dulled. The untitled (well I say untitled, it’s actually called ‘.. – … .- ..-. ..- -.-. –.- .. -. –. – .. — .- -.-. …. .. -. .’ and I can’t be arsed to trawl through Morse Code) starts promisingly, with an atmospherically brooding intro that never stop feeling like an intro, such is the repetitive nature of the riff. It really is frustrating because for every good idea on But The Past… there’s a plethora of lazy moments that make CUAD sound like just another pretender to the hardcore throne.
EPs like this really are annoying because the fact that it only contains four tracks implies that this might not be an adequate signal of a band’s sound. But in this case it’s even more pissing off because hidden within the relentless repetition and sometimes unnecessary heaviness there are some genuinely great moments where CUAD control their heavy tendencies to create a memorable riff, or mix in their melodic sensibilities to go in some random direction. As it is however, I can’t recommend it to anyone except the most completist Revelation Records fan.
Ben
www.revelationrecords.com