With Cursed Rotten Sound have created a completely forgettable but completely serviceable grindcore album. All the aggression is here, the production is barely passable, and the album does have a degree of variety, but none of the songs stick. The riffs are forgettable, the drumming is predictable, and the vocals are lost a bit in the mix as is the bass (except on "Doomed"). In fact I'd go so far as to say the latter half of the album is more memorable than the more aggressive first half due to having a bit more variety. Songs like "Declare" and "Exploit" slow to a relative crawl and "Addict" even features a solo that you won't remember two seconds later.
The production is professionally done but probably the weakest aspect of the album. There is no brutality to hear on Cursed, and if you're like me and want your grindcore to be a soundtrack to you smashing faces, that really sucks. "Superior" and "Hollow" hint at the brutality, but once again the shitty production really takes that feeling away before it manifests. Someone else described the production in a positive light with the word "industrial," and that might just be a testament to how mechanical and artificial this record feels.
I guess this combination of mishaps makes Cursed a marketable, mass-producible grindcore album since it has all the highlights of the genre, but absolutely zero uniqueness. A disappointment for me, but perhaps going into it without expectations would lead one to be pleasantly surprised.
5.5 out of 10
Tracklisting:
| 1. | Alone | ||
| 2. | Superior | ||
| 3. | Self | ||
| 4. | Choose | ||
| 5. | Hollow | ||
| 6. | Ritual | ||
| 7. | Green | ||
| 8. | Machinery | ||
| 9. | Power | ||
| 10. | Plan | ||
| 11. | Declare | ||
| 12. | Addict | ||
| 13. | Exploit | ||
| 14. | Terrified | ||
| 15. | Scared | ||
| 16. | Doomed |
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