Full Of Hell seem like the kind of dudes at your high school that’d smoke leg-cocked in the playground but high five you in the corridor to make sure you’re having a grand old day. There’s a nonchalant coolness shown in the unassuming knowledge of great music from Herbie Hancock to Griselda to Bastard Noise, before you learn they’re also prolifically releasing splits with other talented bands and constantly reinventing what ear piercing noise-grind can sound like, whether in this particular outfit or some other exemplary music project.
They’re the hometown guys that escaped in their own distinct direction, driven by endless creativity, the DIY work ethic, and ‘the ear’ for mixing other scenes into their own. That’s been proven since their abrasive first records, dual releases with experimental legends Merzbow and The Body, and doom ‘n’ grind records that are essentially an excruciating extreme music smoothie. Coagulated Bliss, their fifth full-length (on their own at least), lyrically identifies with the shitness of small local places, but this shift in focus on the real world—as opposed to the macabre fantasia of Ygramul The Many or Silmaril, for instance— also sees their music given more space, more pep, and even some brightness amongst the dirge.
Most Full Of Hell experiences see you bludgeoned repeatedly for 20 minutes, with only the odd ominous demon choir (Armory Of Obsidian Glass) or static noise for respite, but this more—dare I say, catchy—effort presumably formed after honing traditional chord sequence wins with shoegaze band Nothing on their excellent 2023 collab. Single Doors To Mental Agony gave us all a taste of the old, a taste of the new; slides and slowed tempos that drag the feel, or Samuel DiGristine’s bopping bass groove spot to instil a false sense of security before a harrowing blasted outro. Opener Half Life Of Changelings goes further to amplify the newly injected fun-ness to Spencer Hazard’s guitar leads. There’s much more space here than ever before (even in the minute long jaunts) to grab a breath, to flail your arms around, or do that really finger-heavy air guitar/neck banging motion that guys in battle jackets do. Gelding Of Men grants every player ample legroom, and they know exactly what they’re doing with it, while the shimmery sax-infected second half of Malformed Ligature ascends from any noise rot to high heaven.
Not that Dylan Walker has lost his trademark high rasps and cavern-low growls; surely the most inhuman sounding, skillful throat ripper on the scene. That stands out as one the mainstays from records past, as well as David Bland’s feral-yet-clinical drum thumping. Even that diversifies in weird ways to stand Coagulated Bliss as a sonic evolution into new pastures. I think there’s bongos (?) on Vacuous Dose and both live and programmed drums overlap on the industrial flecked Fractured Bonds To Mecca. The title track’s glam metal noodling seems to carry over into Bleeding Horizon, which not only hints at their own Purple Rain era, but their Sunn0))) era, and then some grandiose prog-rock. Meathead beatdown styles (Transmuting Chemical Burns) or traditional death metal riffs (Vomiting Glass), albeit conventional pre-existing styles, also sound all the more amped up and alien in the hands of Full Of Hell, who carry off this switch as if to say “what’s all the fuss about?”
The ability to actually hear every crisp nuance (shout out to mixer Taylor Young) may disgruntle purveyors of the band’s more dark, visceral presentation as if you’re at a live show, but it works perfectly as a showcase for how they’ve borrowed from their inspired collaborations to make a near-accessible record. I say near, it’s still a 26 minute whirlpool that’s impossible to escape from. I wouldn’t play it for your grandparents. But knowing they’ve always had the chops outside of freakish speed-run face-melting makes the payoff of this polished document even more satisfying. They’re jacks of all trades, and continue to prove they’re masters of them too.
For fans of: Thou, Wormrot, Gatecreeper
‘Coagulated Bliss’ by Full Of Hell is released on 26th April on Closed Casket Activities.
Words by Elliot Burr
