Depending on whom you’re speaking to, FULL OF HELL is either a merchant of modern death/grind of the highest order, or a marketing-funded merch machine masquerading as a band on the level of JOB FOR A COWBOY. For myself, I’ve always thought the Maryland quartet passable, but no great shakes in the grand scheme of things. Just seemed a bit too groomed for the Summer Slaughter circuit for me.
It’s comforting, strangely, to know that some things never change.
While opener ‘Burning Myrrh’ is SSDD when it comes to FOH, ‘Haunted Arches’ ups the ante, a bit of the ol’ power-faux-lence from the band’s A389 Recordings days tossed in, but ‘Thundering Hammers’ is pabulum, tossed in to fill space, and unlikely to stir excitement in all but the most accepting in “taste”. I can hear the band’s fans now, in the collective voice of the sports punks from Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, “But it’s extreme, brah!”…no. No, it is not.
Very nearly as entertaining as current MINISTRY, ‘Rainbow Coil’ is three-odd minutes of utterly pointless frequency interference, and it seems FULL OF HELL have yet, ten years in, to learn that even when crafting noise, you have to be headed somewhere. If one manages to stay awake during the following two exercises in banality, ‘Armory Of Obsidian Glass’…well, I can’t say if it redeems what’s come before, or just puts a bit more (read: any) effort in, and therefore sucks less, as [Insert Sludge/Crust Band Name Here] does it better, and more consistently. ‘Ygramul The Many’ is, if there could be such a thing, the shining light of the album, (gasp!) metal riffing and enough moving parts to keep one interested, but not nearly enough to save this exercise in ambivalence.
If you find yourself with surplus cash anytime soon, spend it on a value meal at whatever gutburger establishment suits your fancy. Super-size that shit. It’ll last longer, and be more satisfying than Weeping Choir.
Review By: Lord Randall
FULL OF HELL
Weeping Choir
Relapse
1.5 / 6