Skaldic Curse
World Suicide Machine

April 2009
Released: 2009, Dark Essence Records
Rating: 4.0/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Skaldic Curse, coming from England, name as their inspirations such known acts as Mayhem, Voivod, Darkthrone and Rush, and I can clearly see why, now when I have been spinning the band´s follow-up album, WORLD SUICIDE MACHINE, to their debut album titled PATHOGEN, that was spawned under an unholy light in 2003.



WORLD SUICIDE MACHINE contains a tasteful mixture of certain Voivod-ism, Mayhem-ish, etc., progressive and challenging black metal played with skilled hands and thoughtful minds. To Skaldic Curse´s credit, it must be said that they have truly taken their time with this album, creating a pretty extraordinary musical concept around their stuff – and not crossing any easily accessible barricades just to sell their stuff to people in the cheapest and simplest way you could think of. They haven´t taken the shortest road to follow the masses, on the contrary, they march out like true champions and proclaim an ultimate war against any trends and wanna-be phenomena by their multi-layered, progressive black metal arts.



If anything, Skaldic Curse is a prime example that one can also step out from the shadows as something else, not just as the 267th Darkthrone copy band, or as the 4968th Mayhem copy band – and being able to create a fine blend of beautifully hitting black metal by adding a thing or two into your own soup of influences from here and there. Sure thing, a certain amount of creativity doesn´t harm anyone, as this English black metal horde has proved it so well on their second effort. In quite a few ways, they remind me of the on-hold status Emperor, being on their own crusade against any typical, mass-appeal things in black metal that are usually taken for granted. I mean, if you just cut off Woundz´s grim vocal parts away from this album, there´s not much left of what ingredients black metal normally consists of. Skaldic Curse borders on thrash, death and progressive fields of metal on WORLD SUICIDE MACHINE most of the time, and Woundz´ raw and somewhat misanthropic vocal lines are nearly the only thing that baptize their metallic heads into this unholy fount of black metal – and in a good way, I should add.



Skaldic Curse is a fresh death´s breath of air in an over-saturated black metal market these days, and yet they definitely are one of the most impressive new names coming out from the English ground that have crossed my path lately. What you can expect from WORLD SUICIDE MACHINE, is a relatively strong album in terms of creativity and innovation, so by all means sink your sharp teeth into it.