FERAL EARTH

Feral Earth, the third full length from Berlin’s Curse All Kings (and second shared with Cyclic Law) celebrates the expansion of the collective around B.S.s. (Common Eider, King Eider) to include Fabian Van Beek (Kluizenaer, Lavvra, Hagiophobic), Bryan Bray (Gates, Sutekh Hexen collaborator) and Edie. (La Haine and Common Eider, King Eider collaborator). And with these extraordinary collaborators, each soaked in their own personal worlds of dark ambience and black metal, the third chapter of Curse All Kings unfolds with suffocating fury and wrath.

The arrangements move from almost inaudible ritualistic hums and murmurs, through patient and methodical ritual repetitions, into furious abstracted atmospheres of blackened noise and black metal. What few finger holds the organic drones and compositions offer in the quieter sections of Feral Earth quickly burn away with searing guitar lines stretched, distorted and disfigured almost beyond recognition. Only hints, memories, and echoes of shadows remain. Pummelling doom drums and apocalyptic blast beats suggest movement and coherence, but that mask is quickly removed to show its true face of chaos and hopelessness.
When the sonic themes and vocal offerings on these arrangements are more present, they are heartbroken and crushed by the weight of the world, trampled and cast aside. Yet within all of this insurmountable despair, there is a sense of beauty and hope. Like witnessing a hungry fox walk the filthy inner city streets at 4 am. It looks up at you, feral and defiant.