Void Above, Abyss Below

I've been keeping an eye out on Curse ever since I discovered the band in 2004 and their music has changed a bit throughout the years. It was always more on the melodic and atmospheric side, but still highly influenced by a lot of early 90's black metal bands. Void Above, Abyss Below is a bit different - while I still see a lot of influence from the older bands, the music they put on this album reminds me a lot of newer Darkthrone and to a certain extent, newer Satyricon (you know, if new Satyricon was actually good). All things equal, it's quite a remarkable release.

The reason I'm reminded of newer Darkthrone is that many songs on this album are short, fast, lean and mean. Songs are thrashy and punkish, but catchy, and the atmosphere is, dare I say, grim. There's even a strong sense of rock and roll here. Eldur himself reminds me a lot of Nocturno Culto because of that raspy and frosty sounding voice. No doubt the production styles seem pretty similar. It's like the band is playing somewhere deep in a cave underground that's still exposed to the sunlight and whoever's listening has to hear that echoing sound from the surface.

None of the tracks lag too much and they vary well. The title track is more of a catchy rock and roll kind of tune, while Painting the Devil on the wall show cases their melodic side. Tracks like Desecrating the Holy Trinity and Red is the Deepest Black could have easily been on a Darkthrone album and no one probably would've noticed. There's something for everyone here and I think that's been a strong point from Curse all these years. Despite the variety, they all have one main, underlying theme - a crunchy sound with badass song writing.

I think the band members had a lot of fun producing this album - it shows in the music. Although I can't find an explicit flaw in any of the songs, I think the one thing holding this album back a bit is that it's not as replayable as you may want it to be. There are lots of great lead guitar parts scattered throughout the songs that really add more flavor - and sure it's fun - I don't think Eldur took this album 100% seriously; he just wanted to make an album that screamed metal all over while cutting off all the bullshit and sugarcoating like you find in a lot of other bands these days. But at the end of the day there are a handful of other albums that more lasting impression. If you do end up missing this album, I don't think you're missing too much, but should you stumble across it, I think you'll enjoy it at least for a short while.

I personally prefer their Dead Sun Rise album a little more, but there's no doubt that Void Above, Abyss Below will probably appeal to a bigger fanbase. As said earlier, fans of newer Darkthrone will definitely want to go ahead and grab this one. I think there's a video for the title track circulating around the net so at the very least, go look that up if you want some entertainment. :D

Highlights: Void Above, Abyss Below, I'm the Dead Guy, and Painting the Devil on the Wall