Review of Cursed - III

Returning with the creatively titled third album, III, Canada’s Cursed, as with the likes of Advent, Black Cobra, Protestant, Harlots and such, prove they are still one of the most feral and angry hardcore bands around, and are actually above and beyond the simple ‘hardcore’ tag as far as tangible, snarling, tumbling metal.

The 11 sonic gut shots and bitch slaps are rumbling down-tuned, fuzzy, grizzly numbers that range from the expected landslides of calamitous noise (“Night Terrors”, “Magic Fingers”, “Antihero Resuscitator”, “Hegel’s Bastards”, “Dead Air at the Pulpit”) to oozing, rash inducing crawlers (“Friends in the Music Business”, “III”, “Unnecessary Person”, and seven minute, surprisingly introspective instrumental closer “Gutters”) , invoking a mood not many hardcore bands today have the capability of invoking seamlessly into their sound.

Thanks to the gnarly guitar tone and the overall sense of fuzzed out sneer, the band’s slower moments sound more like Autopsy than the now rampant ‘Isisian’ injections into hardcore and give the band so much more character than many of their steamed off peers content to simply stomp and rant for an entire album.

However, as highlighted by the afore mentioned closer, “Gutters”, Cursed are far more than your typical hardcore band and as such should be considered one of the elite hardcore bands around.