Album of the Week CURSE OF DENIAL—"The 13th Sign"
When American outfit CURSE OF DENIAL so happened to land in my possession, I would find myself sitting in a bar attempting to parse the first couple of tracks of the debut, “The 13th Sign” to the conclusion that I was going to have to review a whole lot of average. As it turns out, I was a whole lot of wrong.
“The 13th Sign” is a death metal record, although in reality, the band play a heavily thrash influenced, melodic black/death hybrid. The opening track “Ophiuchus the Winding Serpent” is a straight melodic black metal track, complete with retched vocals and tremolo verses, whereas “Pawns in Chess,” one of the record’s more riff-mongering cuts, featuring modern Testament-like rhythms, accented with a clear love of Dissection, all forged through a basic death sensibility. As we stumble to “The 13th Sign’s” halfway point, its already been a sojourn through a multi-faceted landscape, although a pervasive black metal snow blankets everything in sight, despite the classic death/thrash and, occasionally, doom riffs attempting to disturb the frost. The strength of the album, though, does undoubtedly lie in the incendiary leads.
“The 13th Sign” is a fantastic offering, graced with ravenous fret-work and a warm, slick production to further grease the wheels. Since coming into my beer-addled grip, CURSE OF DENIAL have rocketed up my list of “ones to watch” and, minor quibbles aside – which almost certainly won’t be present come the follow up – have crafted a boundlessly re-playable album… and isn’t that the point? Don’t miss out.
(Source—Angry Metal Guy)
