Succuba

"No Arms/No Cake" CD

Handmade Records

Genre: black metal, metal

Norway

Oct 6 2008

SWEET. From the annals of Norwegian black metal comes this quartet of misfits, hell-bent on teaching your sorry ass a thing or two about how to rock. Beginning with a distorted dinky melody sampled from God-knows-where, the record quickly piles on the mayhem with the introduction of guitars, bass, and drums. Opener "Klaus" is dense and drastic, hitting with the sonic equivalent of a lead pipe to the spine. The metal doesn't let up from then on, with highlights including overdriven anthem "Sun Fried Noggin" and six minute epic "Argh," a constantly evolving trip that seems to tell a story. Meanwhile, the occasional inclusion of keyboard and saxophone gives No Arms/No Cake a refreshing vitality when the sludge dwindles on the homogeneous. While it won't win over those not already predisposed to like metal, this record is a hard-hitting trip that was made for head-banging along to.

succuba's myspace

82%

Matt Shimmer

[Vitals: 8 tracks, distributed by the label, released 2008]