Grue – Casualty Of The Psychic Wars (Eternal Death)
There’s not a ton of black metal bands in the Boston area, lots of other metal/hardcore stuff, but for the most part it’s not black enough for my tastes, so when one comes my way, obviously I’m gonna rep em. Enter Grue, who as far as I know, have only put out one release, a split with Word Of Unmaking, prior to this debut full length. That split was good stuff but they fuckin bring it on Casualty Of The Psychic Wars, fast & furious wreckage that’s clean and surprisingly well produced for something that could have easily been another demo lost in the void. These dudes tear shit up, starting out non-fucking-stop, then scaling back to a slow doomed middle and bringing it back to full fledged chaos by the end, it’s cold, brutal, and bleak as hell. And yeah since they’re from Boston a little hardcore seeps in, and while I’m really not into that sorta thing, Grue truly make it work, the vocalist not taking the usual screechy demon/cookie monster route and instead just letting loose a beastly yell, lyrically diving into HP Lovecraft territory, and getting kinda weird instrument-wise, with maybe some synths or something, not sure, definitely not your run of the mill black metal, they manage to show off their inspirations & influences, taking cues from death metal, post black metal, and whatever else without sounding like a generic hodge-podge of watered down misanthropy, they fucking own it, and they’ve only got one full length under their belt. Just you wait.