Review Summary: And with a thousand fangs, the world is destroyed.
From the darkest, most abrasive corners of extreme music comes This Gift Is a Curse, a blackened sludge / post-metal outfit characterized by its affinity towards sonic hyperviolence and a rather forlorn philosophy on the value of the human condition. I’m still not familiar with the band’s debut “I, Gvilt Bearer” from 2012, but I strongly appreciated how tense and engaging their two follow-up full length albums were, which had me eagerly waiting for a new sign of activity since before the beginning of the pandemic - now arriving in the form of “Heir”.
A noose is immediately tightened around the neck of the listener once the opener “Kingdom” kicks in, where the band blasts its now known, sharp black metal aggression laced with novel electronics in what is, right from the get-go, one of the most forceful tracks of the record. A thick, oppressive atmosphere is established as faster, more volatile sections grapple with middle-paced, suffocating sludgy / post-metal rotations that This Gift Is A Curse frequently practice, enhancing the album’s unpredictability as well as its adequacy to blend pieces from numerous genres together. While they fully sound like themselves at all times, there are still a few newer elements present here compared to their back catalog, which indicates a state of creative unrest and progress.
To me, the production has considerably improved since “A Throne of Ash”, providing a crucial boost in impact with a generally dense mix that neatly reveals all the variation and texture of the album. The aching instrumentation is topped with a vocal work that sounds as tormented as possible, and the combination of male and female clean singing in the second half of “Kingdom” is particularly notable. The band has introduced some sparse layers of electronics, like the interlude “Passing” or at the introduction of “Void Bringer”, but also in the more experimental approach of free drums / synths and vocals on “Cosmic Voice”, which is the most unique track and further signifies the band’s expanded artistic palette.
High levels of infectious, riff-driven malevolence can also be found in “Vow Sayer”, “Seer of No Light” and “Death Maker”, while the longer pieces like “Void Bringer” or “Old Space” get more meditative. In my view, these tracks also contain the album’s primary weakness (one that also extends to This Gift Is A Curse as a whole): a tendency toward repetitiveness that falls short when compared to the ferocity of their heaviest moments. I had this issue with their previous records too, but “Heir” runs even 15 minutes longer. The intensity sometimes diminishes in both “Void Bringer” and “Old Space”, and the same is also evident only moderately in a few moments of the final track “Ascension”, which is otherwise, thankfully, packed with bombastic guitar lines.
Don’t let this remark discourage you though. Even if I would prefer a more tightly structured work (optimally at two thirds of its current duration), This Gift Is A Curse still sit comfortably above average in the extreme metal scene, and they carry on with another album of poignant chaos that claws and screams its way through the listener. If you’re a fan of names like Hexis, Rorcal or Celeste, you’ll most likely be in full alignment with the band’s musical uproar. And if there’s an end year list for album covers, “Heir” should get a high ranking there too.
