All roads point to oblivion. This EP from Kalloused covers blackness from every stylistic angle. The first of these six dark pieces starts in measured fashion with a post apocalyptic sound. It’s haunting. There are distant cries and sound effects. It’s reminiscent of Cult of Luna. After all the patient build-up and ominous whisperings, I sense a loss of patience. The build-up goes. We find ourselves deeper in the chasm. Chaos descends until it is all-out chaos. The sweary, cynical lyrics talk of the fire of hate and the broken masses. There’s no hope in any of this, and it’s all reflected in the music. The music is pounding and hypnotic to a point, but the hypnosis is broken up by the brutality. As we head towards the fifth piece or rather, slab, heavy doom kicks in. This growly, blackened world fades away whisperingly into oblivion.
Exploring every aspect of darkness is well and good, but my mind wandered as I was listened to “Damn You Believer”. So I listened to it again, and again, but what I found was a blur. It starts off impressively enough, and develops different atmospheres through noise, doom and a constant mood of menace and brutality. There’s dark intent but for me there was no story line. Perhaps that doesn’t matter. This was exploration of the darkest kind.
(6.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
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https://kalloused.bandcamp.com/releases
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