Review: Coffin Curse ‘The Continuous Nothing’
Album artwork that includes wraiths, tendrils, a mysterious building covered in a mist of blood and a dripping band logo that positively screams purulence… I’m already sold and you already know it’s death metal! Not just death metal but death metal out of Chile, a country which has consistently released a veritable tidal wave of high quality extreme music.
So, today I bring you the sophomore record from Santiago bruisers Coffin Curse titled The Continuous Nothing which was released April 18th via Memento Mori (CD) Desert Wastelands Productions (cassette) and Eat My Records (vinyl). Will this be another addition to Chile’s rich death metal discography? Or will it fail to reach the high standards set over recent years with great records from groups like Innana (also sharing members from this duo), Putrid Yell and Blood Oath.
Four years on from their debut full-length Ceased To Be which was a pulverising ode to all things old school death metal, with The Continuous Nothing this South American duo ramps up that pulverisation with less doom tinged sections and more worship at the altar of all things relentlessly heavy! Did I mention this is a duo, two guys Max Neira and Carlos Fuentes! To conjure up more devastation than most groups twice their size can manage is always impressive.
There’s a growing trend of old school death metal groups moving to a more progressive sound and don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with that, the two members, as mentioned earlier, who make up Coffin Curse also perform in the killer group Innana whom certainly fall into that more progressive area of the death metal sphere (you should check out their last release Void Of Unending Depths… it’s excellent and an album I reviewed for The Sleeping Shaman).
The venomous growls sit perfectly alongside the savage riffery…
Coffin Curse step back that progressive sound, and while still technically proficient, The Continuous Nothing is a far more straight up, balls to the wall death metal affair; a vile demon spawn combining the vicious South American sounds of a Sarcófago with the more riff leaning Euro death metal sounds of say Vomitory.
The venomous growls sit perfectly alongside the savage riffery, occasionally peaking at a wraith like high that pierces through all the devastation just perfectly. The non-stop action on here makes the record feel like it flashes by, even clocking in at a respectable forty-three minutes, you’ll still be reaching for that restart button when it finishes. Of course, that is once you have picked your intestines off the floor after the frantic disembowelment that Coffin Curse dole out.
There’s a great caustic atmosphere which is propped up by the killer job on the production, it sounds modern yet keeps its character and doesn’t sacrifice the bludgeoning heaviness for a ‘clean sound’ which is always a tick in my book!
Sure, Coffin Curse aren’t reinventing the wheel here, but if you’re like me and dig high quality death metal that’ll crush you and any sternum in the near vicinity, then you’ll dig this. The duo have done a great job and I look forward to spinning this again and again!
Label: Memento Mori | Desert Wastelands Productions | Eat My Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
Scribed by: Matt Alexander
