Track By Tracks: Cult Burial - Cult Burial (2020)

1. Dethroner:

Dethroner has one intention: to hit you hard. It was the last track to be written for the album, actually. I just picked up a new guitar and it came out the morning I got it. It was the only track that guitar wrote. It's a little different sounding from the rest of the album, and probably is more indicative of the sound the second album will have. 

2. Moribund:

This was originally intended to be the album opener. Moribund's opening lyrics are "shrouded by a fog, asphyxiated, sunken in the vile truth of existence" which tells you what you need to know about this track. It's heavy but tuneful I reckon. 

3. Chaos:

Probably the most complex song on the album. Chaos has a long breakdown section, which is 3 or 4 minutes of almost prog metal introspection. The part coming out of the break down is one of my favourite parts of the album - I've heard it probably 500 times and it still feels good each time I hear it. 

4. Abyss: 

Abyss has an intro that is not heavy - almost alternative rock - but then breaks into all-out death metal savagery. The irony of the track is that it was written in the most beautiful place, in the most peaceful circumstances (admittedly at the start of a global pandemic)..

 

5. Plague:

The most unique track on the album. Clean guitars start the track and I don't know how to describe it but the drum rhythms are off-time and it just has a different vibe to anything else on the album. "My heart dies drowning In the scorn of solitude." 

6. Kill:

Kill is based on a riff I've been working around for ages, I love it. Every guitar I pickup, I play that riff to test it. It's lyrically aggressive and musically intense. It's got a face-melting solo too. 

7. End:

End has a doom-laden chorus. I love the vocal delivery during the chorus, it's absolutely brutal. It's a song about nothingness, about a pointless existence. 

8. Forever: 

The album was a bit too long for a vinyl cut, so unfortunately this track did not make it onto the vinyl version. I've always thought it had a slightly stoner metal edge in the verse, then breaks into full death metal brutality during the chorus. 

9. Sorrow:

Sorrow is a sludgey, doom-based track with repetitive lyrics repeating over and over to end the album. The track featured on the first band release, a two-track EP in March 2020. It seemed the right way to end the album. "Anger and fury runs through my body" is pretty much the only way to summarise my 2020. Maybe other people feel the same.