“Kill the bosses, kill the priests, kill the shepherds--save the sheep.”
I don’t usually write about music in my blog. There’s a few dozen reasons for it but the best I can come up with right now is that a good deal of the people reading it don’t give a fuck how I feel about some basement-dwelling powerviolence band from Iowa who put out one EP and then fell into the void while attempting to fill it with their own jizzum. And really, in that context, I can appreciate and understand the lack of interest most people would have that sort of entry.
But, because I spared you all my insights on the last WORLD BURNS TO DEATH record and my lengthy comparative analysis of the discographies of RECENSION and OXBAKER, I figure I’m within my right to review the third album by Toronto’s metallic hardcore heavyweights. If this isn’t your cup of pee, I suggest you mosey, cowpoke. Because this is as likely to bore you as the actual album is to tear a strip out of you.
I could start where most reviewers, interviewers and other writerly sorts start when discussing CURSED. I could perform a run-through of the scene credentials and list the bands these guys have played in before. But if you’ve decided to keep reading then you either already know, or will listen to the album and take great pains to find out how far back the great hardcore goes. (It goes way, way, waayyyyyy the fuck back.)
But where I’d like to start is here:
I’m playing an Epiphone SG that hasn’t been restrung since I moved to BC. Those three year old strings are down-tuned a full step. I play with a Rat distortion pedal through a Crate amp about fifteen years past its prime. This amp has a speaker cone that rattles like Bea Arthur with a lung infection receiving earth-moving oral sex. And my guitar doesn’t sound half as evil, dirty or heavy as Christian McMaster’s.
Not. Even. Fucking. Close.
From the first notes on the eponymous introductory track, through the blast beats of the opening of the album proper right until the final strains of “Gutters” have seared themselves into your battered brain, the guitar never lets up, never sounds weak. In fact, it never sounds like anything but a raging conflagration bent on consuming every available source of fuel.
The guitar overload of the second album isn’t here (suggesting to me that CURSED should always operate as a four-piece) and I figure when you have Dan Dunham of--y’know, that heavy band from Hamilton with the really cool name--playing bass you want his noise as high in the mix as you can get it. Which might have something to do with (what turned out to be) the band’s brilliant move of getting their sound guy, Donny Cooper, to produce. Who knows better what the band is supposed to sound like than the guy that’s been making them sound like them night-in and night-out on tour?
Another boon of the departed guitar overload is the fact that the drums never once get lost in the mix (which, truth be told, is my only real complaint about Two--why have a drummer like Mike Maxymuik if you‘re going to hide his talents behind a wall of feedback? Good drummers are damn hard to come by!). In fact, at times, like at the end of “Friends in the Music Business”, the drums shine in a way they never have on a CURSED record.
And of course, through all of this you have what I’ve come to regard as the razor edge of CURSED’s musical attack--the lyrical and vocal ability of Chris Colohan. I warn you: this might come off as hero-worship with just a touch of homosexual longing--but the dude is a solid word-monger. I remember way-back-when, listening to a 10” by a band that contained three-quarters of CURSED (man, it’s hard to write this without mentioning the bands they were in before) that ended with a spoken-word track by Colohan that thoroughly blew my mind and was responsible, in large part, for my return to writing.Things are no different on this album. Take, for example, the opening quote of this review, taken from the album’s third track, “Magic Fingers.” Is there any simpler expression of just what punk is about? Probably, but does it rhyme? Probably not. And it probably doesn’t have Colohan’s gravel-throated delivery to back it up.
Or how about on the song "Into the Hive," where Chris, in a rage against Toronto’s condominium-culture, expectorates this little gem: “Show me a man with that much faith in concrete and I'll show you every self-starter that ever put torch to building.”
What amazes me most is that Chris seems to get more and more disgusted and disillusioned with every release. Some three bands ago I figured Chris had peaked as far as total rage went. But here, on CURSED’s third record, he manages to plumb new depths of anger and frustration. If he didn’t come off as such an affable, funny guy in interviews I’d implore his friends to put him on suicide watch (though a homicide watch is not entirely out of the question).
All this ass-kickery comes with a neat little bow on it: this is easily CURSED’s most cohesive record. There were moments on the first two records where I found myself taken out of the flow--for example, listening to Two and asking myself, “Wait, are they covering War Pigs?” and then checking the track listing and realising that it was indeed and original called “Model Home Invasion.”
That’s not to say that there are no surprises on Architects…. In fact, just wait until you get a load of “Unnecessary Person.” Not only is it a huge departure for CURSED, it might just be the finest vocal performance Colohan has turned in since “Nineteen Seventy-Four” (the song, not the year).
But I suppose the big thing people are going to want to know is how III: The Architects of Troubled Sleep stacks up against One and Two.
See, the great thing about One is that these dudes didn’t care if it came off as too metal or too heavy or (G*d forbid--too SABBATH). If you thought that the breaks were too “tough-guy” sounding or the music not tuneless or atonal enough (this, of course, at a time when everyone was doing their damnedest to sound like LÄ RM) then fuck ya. CURSED was doing CURSED.
Two, I’ll admit, I didn’t get right away. I thought the production was muddy and everything seemed muffled to me. I had to listen to it while running to figure out what made it great. The sound of Two is the sound of your heart pounding in your ears; of blood pumping at insane volume through your head. It’s the sound of your body on the brink of total exhaustion.
If One was the dark cloud, and Two was the rolling thunder, then Three is the storm. Three is the total devastation that leaves nothing in its wake but wrecked landscapes, decimated cities, mourning families and utter waste.
I worry, sometimes, that there won’t be a Four. With the turnover rate in underground hardcore being as insanely high as it is, it’s rare to find a band that has staying power. It was easy in the early days, I suppose, when what was “punk” was less rigidly defined. If BLACK FLAG had been forced to release Damaged over and over again instead of being permitted to evolve, well, we might not have gotten a third album from them. Luckily, they were permitted, for the most part, to explore new territory. And while In My Head might have been taking the experiment a little far, at least they had the opportunity to make that record.
I realise that CURSED will likely be vilified in some quarters for the few departures on this album. Hell, look what happened to their fellow Torontonians in FUCKED UP--a band that could do no wrong while they were releasing two-song seven inches. When they released Hidden World a major split occurred amongst fans that the band, thankfully, survived and which helped to rejuvenate their fan base.
Let’s hope the reviews are kind to CURSED. And let’s hope Four comes quickly.
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