Dodsferd

Cursing Your Will To LIve
Moribund Records

Raining coal-black shards of broken glass!

No, no, what "Cursing Your Will To Live" feels like is the after-effects of a lifetime spent listening to Judas Priest, Burzum and the Germs and drinking and taking every drug within reach, all while hating everything about where you live and the people with their stupid lives and stupid beliefs all around you until that hatred becomes a tangible acid in your stomach and lungs and you just have to scream and vomit it out. Dodsferd (aka Wrath from Greece, and no one else) ramps up the aggression and intensity of black metal with sneering doses of classic punk and good, catchy heavy metal deviltry (where you're like, my god listen to that Motorhead riff, fuck's sake!). In that respect, Dodsferd is nearer to the primitive rocka-rolla misanthropy of a Carpathian Forest, than the majestic, slate-grey horizons of Xasthur. But, y'know, viva la difference! I still play 'em back to back.

Some of the songs on "Cursing Your Will To Live" are seriously fucking catchy, like storming classic metal wrapped in black leather and doused in blood. And Wrath's vocals? Seriously lunatic. Vocal screams often taperoff into ragged shudders and moans - sounding completely in the midst of some sort of mental breakdown half the time. Ain't no devil horn posturing here. Dodsferd is on a more misanthropic kick, like when Wrath sreeches in frustration, that still those "hypocrite shitfuckers" won't die. songs are pretty long, which fucking rules because they just keep rocking and rocking as Wrath contemptuously layers killer, top of killer riff, only to mar and scarify it with sentiments and pronouncements, before veering off into some rampage or total white noise. There are also some experrimental moments akin to an exorcism or a Baker Act gone fatlly wrong. And it's got one of the best song titles ever, "You Called It Resurrection, I Called It Fairytalke For Human Parasites, Your Kind!" No one loses here!

Voted most likely to soundtrack a multiple murder.

- Matthew Moyer