Infernal Curse is charred, bottomless pit dwelling black/death metal coming from Argentina.  Over the years I’ve notice that South America tends to produce bands that deliver highly concentrated versions of their chosen metal genre and its accompanying aesthetic traits.  On Apocalipsis the catholic cathedral reverb is cranked a few notches past the usual.  Every touchstone of black and death metal is hot-rodded and rewired for maximum output.  Though, through all of the studio atmospherics nothing is so obscured that you can’t follow a guitar riff or identify what cymbal is being struck.  Apocalipsis is a beast from realms beyond our understanding that’s been locked at the bottom of a pit for 1000 years urgently trying to progress, in complete darkness, to the surface of our mortal plane.

By the sound of this album, Infernal Curse, in spite of all pleading from the producer, held a sharpened upside down cross to his neck and commanded thee to crank everything.  Of course, if metal is for anything, it’s extremity right?  On Apocalipsis the catholic cathedral reverb is cranked a few notches past what most bands would deem to be tasteful. The vocals are one solid stream of spewing ash cloud, no distinguishable words or changes in tone.  The guitars are tuned low, distorted and pushed until the notes convert to the blackest oil forcing through the speaker cone spreading outward from the cabinet saturating each layer of the recording.  The guitar solo/lead parts are boosted enough to get your attention and are generally of an unhinged thrashy style.  The bass surely lends to this heavy blend, running deep like the guilt felt after a spirited midnight mass sermon.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the bass output came from 2 1×18 cabinets.  The drumming serves the whole, riding the middle, pulling with muster to keep the songs wrangled and continuing in a forward trajectory.  The Toms rumble uncontrollably, and due again to the reverb each snare hit sounds like 1.7 with long aftershocks.  It’s an unwavering, monochromatic black vacuum of an album, consuming hope and expelling sulfuric vapor.

Bluntly put, Apocalipsis comes off as a monotonous rush to usher in the age of the anti-christ, but with strong atmosphere and delivery which is what should hook you even if the riffs don’t right away.  Repeated listens reveal it to be a more varied record than what first impressions would lead you to assume.  At 4:31 of “Litanies Unto Djinn”  starts one of those unhinged solo’s that I mentioned and which offers some silvery light apart from the shadows.  “Obituaries” is built on some early US death metal style groove.  Each song includes passages of mid-paced death groove though they never really change the overall forceful momentum of the record, but serve as devices foreshadowing the next collapsing-cave like, down tuned bashing.  The longest track “Adharma” is placed three-quarters in and stands out as featuring longer doom-y parts leading to and following their signature grinding blackened assault.  Track 1 and 9 are short intro and outro respectively so you really have a 7 track album at 33 minutes which is pretty perfect all factors considered.

Infernal Curse offer up a destructive black/death metal record with tones and production of a dead serious (show me a fun one) funeral doom record.  They’re rooted in Sex Trash and Sarcafago, but with the modern heft and emphasized atmosphere of playing Ignivomous through an echoplex tape delay.  Personally I very much enjoy and gravitate to records that are unrelenting, urgent, yet rather monotonous in their delivery.  Monotony is almost always is used in a negative connotation with music yet it can be commonly attributed across metal and other genres that find support and fans generation after generation whether it’s classic techno or atmospheric black metal.  Within the context of Apocalipsis the word is simply meant as descriptor and not detraction.  Beyond that is the conviction of those delivering the music, and I feel it here from the band.  Bass player Deicidal Abominator could very well be hammering out two notes over an entire song but my impression is that live he would come off like a witch doctor under the possession of ancestral spirits, his savage playing channeling their dark power.  Infernal Curse really sell the material and that’s more than can be said for many albums.

 

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