Sixteen years into their career, Curse The Son have unleashed a devastating work in ‘Delirium’. By taking many cues from classic stoner and doom bands and then adding their own brand of extra sludge, this fifth album from the New Haven heavyweights certainly doesn’t sell itself short in terms of riffs. The record’s general heaviness will be enough to win over a huge section of the metal community, but some already intense workouts take on new levels of darkness when the arrangements are peppered with some very bleak lyrical concerns.
It’s not a record that breaks the listener in gently. The less than optimistic ‘This Suffering Is Ours’ is about as bleak as its title suggests. From the moment a doomy guitar riff cracks through, the band embark on a sludgy journey that invites little more than a slow and thoughtful head nodding on behalf of the listener. As the audience is slowly pummelled into submission via a heavy Sabbath infused sound, vocalist Ron Vanacore explores a lyrical landscape where everyone is invited to “face the fear”, and bear witness to the “strangulation of paradise”. His delivery wavers between the melodic, the haunted and the genuinely powerful as he takes on the mantle of doom metal soothsayer against a familiar yet still powerful barrage of Sabbath and Sleep derived heaviness. In short, those who love classic sounding doom – and always prefer it with a clean vocal – will find plenty to love within these five minutes, and the rest of the album offers much more greatness.
Continuing with the heavy vibes, ‘Deliberate Cruelty’ adopts a flatter guitar tone for something even sludgier as the band wade through a world of sounds that are clearly derived from Black Sabbath’s peerless ‘Volume 4’ LP and then made even more intense. Atop the swaggering riff, clean guitars add an unexpected layer of sound. You might even call the riff cheeky, but a more accessible tone doesn’t actually detract from the swampy sounds that are being laid down. A couple of stops break up an even heavier riff before a psychedelic lead break adds a new slant to the musical sludginess, and with a concession to a big chorus hook, this becomes an instant highlight. Showing a sense of humour, a heavy, slow, fuzzed out bass groove has been dubbed ‘May Cause Drowsiness’, which is used very effectively as an intro for ‘Liste of The Dead’, a classic doom metal workout where Brian Harris’s snare drum cracks through a deep, sludge fuelled riff, resulting in one of Curse The Son’s heaviest workouts to date. Ron’s guitar work never rises much beyond a distorted blast here, but his vocals are immense as he uses clean, wailing tones to contrast the heaviness, again very much in the manner of those early Sabbath classics. Simply put, if you like no frills doomy metal, you’ll be drawn to this in a blackened heartbeat.
Offering a little respite and a pleasing musical variety, instrumental cut ‘Brain Paint’ eschews the band’s typical doom in favour of a deep psych and space rock blend. A slow rhythm is supplied by a solid drum line and fuzz bass, over which heavily reverbed guitars throw out neo-psychedelic barbs. Over the course of two and a half minutes, the band explore a sound that fuses the trippiness of classic Hawkwind with the whacked out aspects of ‘Tab 25’ era Monster Magnet, allowing bassist Dan Weeden an extended warm up before everything slips into the title cut where Curse The Son literally explode with distortion. Although the end results aren’t always as heavy as those heard on ‘Liste of The Dead’, the band make great use of a repeated riff – almost in a ‘Wheels of Confusion’ style – which, set against some natural harmonies, sets up a simple yet effective slab of doom. It’s slow and heavy in the best possible way, but to avoid anything getting too simplistic, bassist Dan can be heard dropping in some very complex fills, which bring a lot of extra musical interest. Lyrically, once again, this is far from lightweight, with themes of destruction, distorted faces and torture set against threats of a summertime death, making it classic Curse The Son.
Another of the stand out tracks, a cover of Witchfinder General’s ‘R.I.P.’ actually resorts to more of a comic book brand of doom by teasing with lyrics about “grave snatchers and church gate-crashers”, but balances out any potential silliness with some top notch riffs. The opening slow chug is clearly derived from Black Sabbath’s title song (borrowed in the best possible taste), and the middle eight’s heavy stomp isn’t a million miles away from dropping into ‘After Forever’, but between the two obvious steals, CTS explore some superb riffs. The mid tempo, fuzzed up groove that fills the bulk of the track falls between classic Trouble and Orange Goblin, and when augmented by a painfully loud cowbell, it really gives everything a hefty 70s feel. The band resorts to genuinely safe ground, but that’s precisely what makes it so good, of course: when stoner and doom is approached in a tried and tested, no-frills manner, it almost always results in something classic, leaving only the vocal to split opinion. In this case, everything works brilliantly, with Ron’s voice approaching something even more Ozzy-esque on the track’s faster sections.
‘Delirium’ is another impressive work from Curse The Son. It relies heavily on various classic stoner and doom tropes for its core sound, but that only reinforces the material’s almost timeless nature. Despite eschewing a couple of their prior bluesy deviations, this is arguably one of the band’s strongest works, with their commitment to a heavy sound coming through even more clearly than before. Simply put, if you have any interest in classic sounding, doom laden metal, then this album really should be on your list of discs to check out without hesitation.
August 2024