Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Black Metal

Pure Sonic Bedlam – Cease to Exist: Relax in the Safety of Your Own Delusions Review & Stream

In many ways, the fusion of black metal and crust punk makes complete logical sense. Both genres purvey frenetic, insane bouts of anger, weaving together instruments into a surging, stinging mass of noise that overwhelms the listener completely – albeit in different ways. Crust punk is inherently far more confrontational and direct in its rage, while black metal relies on scope and atmosphere. And while previous attempts at combining the two genres have focused on using black metal’s obscure, amorphous attack as a supporting element, Relax in the Safety of Your Own Delusions, the debut full-length from English destroyers Cease to Exist, sees this amalgamation explored in a fascinating, albeit just as ruinous, way.

In true crust fashion, Relax is not an outstandingly long record. But in not even twenty minutes, Cease to Exist’s barrage of blast beats, anthemic D-beat riffs and distant, howled vocals create a dense, suffocatingly dark atmosphere that’s akin to plunging headfirst into boiling water. And while that may seem a far cry from the canonical freezing winds of black metal, which has a tendency to take more time setting up that atmosphere, the band’s nihilistic, esoteric lyrics and frenzied guitar riffs more than make up for its lack of exposition.

Relax is as much a crossover between black metal and crust as it is a bloody brawl between both influences, as the band moves between exaggerated tremolo riffs and crust beatdowns, falling back into feedback to survey the damage they’ve done. All the while, blackened, ritualistic rasps rise from the cavernous background, howling over the carnage. While in the record’s second half, Cease to Exist do take some time to play with the ambiance, they just as quickly fall back on their crust roots to destroy it, spending the record’s final sections in all-out destruction as lockstep drums move to the forefront of the mix, before breaking down into pummeling, tom-heavy blast beats.

In a sense, however, it’s that merciless, incessant violence that sets blackened crust apart from other black metal denominations – Cease to Exist have no room for the histrionics of their ‘occult’ or ‘atmospheric’ brethren. Their focus isn’t on brooding over misanthropy as much as it is acting on it – bringing the nihilistic fantasies of black metal into harsh, fiery reality.

a1971296370_10

Written By

Adrian is a Bostonian living in Montreal and studying toxicology. He likes battle jackets, Archgoat, and Tibetan food. Adrian writes about not just black metal on his blog Idiot in Remission.

Relapse DF 92123
Sentient 51423

You May Also Like

Documentaries

The above photo is a very famous image of the skinhead Nicky Crane. To many racist skins, he is an ideal example of manhood...

Avant Garde

If the name didn’t give it away, Cuntroaches are cut from a different cloth. This Berlin-based cadre of sonic terrorists constructs an extremely abrasive...

Black Metal

I wrote the below words in 2011, and over a decade later, this DISGUSTER record is still one of my all-time favorites!!! Revisit it...

Black Metal

#10 FINAL DOSE Void Inside There are no more fickle masters than the corporate capitalist overlords who are scheming every day to keep us...

Copyright © 2020 CVLT Nation.