NT Cents (Second Opinion): Accursed Kingdom – Decades of Hate [2013]
Tired of tedious run-of-the-mill bands that spam breakdown after breakdown? Of course you are! Music like that is only good for a few things: pissing off the neighbors or for annoying random pedestrians while you drive down the street with your 2000 watt sound system, but what about music that impresses and immerses YOU into the ambience, music that gets your complete attention? When was the last time you had that joyous feeling? Music like that is hard to come by, especially in a scene where everything is imitated and copied. Accursed Kingdom has the album you need to have in your collection: Decades of Hate. Right from the start you notice that these Harlow lads created a jewel you were searching for all your life, and you didn’t even knew it! Out of nowhere this release was brought to my attention and I won’t lie: this is some the most impressive music I heard in a LONG time, and that’s really saying something because there are lots of phenomenal releases to be found in this year alone.
Creepy church bells and faint, ominous screams can be heard in the intro, giving a indication that something bad might happen very soon, however when Lack of Faith starts opening its flood gates of mass destruction it would still seem like you were completely caught off-guard. It is at this moment that you are introduced to the carefully mixed elements of Decades of Hate the concrete guitar slams, the gravity defying percussions and the incinerating vocal attacks join together to create the PERFECT balance of flesh-tearing brutality. From the get-go the listener will be amazed by this sick level of dedication and deadly precision, amazingly enough this is just the tip of the iceberg. The following two songs El Chapo and Woodfield feature lots of atmospheric/sweeping guitar tones that give an instant surge of adrenaline to your nervous system and paralyzes your senses in an addictive manner. At this point your craving for more is answered by the next song Murder to Purge, which is simply pure fucking heavy-hitting anger (and I think it’s about masturbation, so go nuts and cum buckets filled with love for this amazing album). The anger enseus with the following Necrophila Divulged; very dark lyrics, hateful deathcore vocals and relentless death metal riffing make this one of the best songs on the album, though it’s hard to pick favorites. As you might suspect at this point; the interlude is every bit as atmospheric, creepy and enticing as the rest of Decades of Hate, the second half of the album punishes you with a barrage of even more vocal anger and instrumental aggression, for some reason the layers of animosity seem to stack up with each song until you make it to the last track Effigies & Eulogies, when you reach this song the hatred that is portrayed in Decades of Hate has reached levels where you can actualy touch the thick layer of negativity and bitterness instead of just feeling it, the words ”I am chaos, I am hatred, I am everything this world has created” will echo through your skull long after the song has stopped playing. Shivering atmospherical guitar tones and low-tuned djent assaults are also present in each song to add an even thicker layer to the whole environment, because they (unlike some other bands I could name) are used at the exact right moments, this results in you percieving every note and scream as a punch to the face. The instrumental tuning/timing is what gives Decades of Hate the finishing touches it needs to truly stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Accursed Kingdom describe their own music style simply as ”dark & heavy”; a rather modest definition if you ask me, if nothing else Decades of Hate is the absolute epitome of those descriptions. This album is everything you could ever hope to want from a solid full length immersive metal release; the crushing ambience, the caustic death vocal attacks, the soul-devouring instrumental technicality and the malignant lyrics are a downward spiral that drag you to the deepest depths of the ocean, but not before you have been indoctrinated by the addictive bass grooves and dissonant guitar tones. If you should survive this deadly encounter those grooves will surely pull you back into the brutality for more replays. So do yourself a favor and don’t just punish the neigborhood and your (soon to be) perforated eardrums, inject yourself with tons of euphoric destruction in the process. The price of admission is a free listening session available on their Bandcamp page, or if you want the album on the go you can purchase the whole thing for just 2 pounds (available on the 30th of August). You have no excuses whatsoever to miss out on this experience, LISTEN TO THIS FUCKING ALBUM NOW!
Rating: 10/10
For fans of: Depths, Thy Art is Murder, Fit For An Autopsy, Rose Funeral
