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Cynic, Celtic Frost, Atheist, Pestilence, Supuration….all could be considered part of a restrictive group of extreme Metal bands that succeeded in pushing the musical envelope and whose music has remained impervious to the weathering of time. Of them all, French band Supuration remain perhaps the most obscure – indeed until this album fell onto my lap, the only Supuration album I had heard was the “Cube” masterpiece of 1992 and information on the band is relatively hard to find.
“Cube 3” concludes a conceptual trilogy that started with “Cube” and continued with the prequel “Incubated” (2003) - each album released exactly a decade apart from the other. In a nutshell the concept concerns a vagrant soul that seeks redemption and the answers to a number of questions that afflict it. Lyrically, Supuration are known to mix science fantasy with philosophy and introspection, an aspect that adds significant depth to the band’s songs.
Musically the new album follows the band’s distinctive style in that the music is brutal, polished, daring and visionary in similar measures. Supuration make use of both clean and Death Metal vocals and, tonally speaking, their sound predominantly evokes comparisons with Voi-Vod. To be honest it’s hard to describe this music to the new listener – I mean it would probably be correct to throw in words and phrases such as ‘dark’, ‘cold’, ‘melodic’, ‘brutal’, ‘atypical guitars’ and ‘thought-provoking’. Envisioning these descriptions all at one go would be a different challenge. Yet Supuration succeed in crafting their own hard-hitting sound from a disparate range of elements.
Some riffs in “Cube 3” seem to be taken directly off the “Cube” album, though this is likely to be intentional so as to foment a conceptual link between the albums. As if a knife is being sliced through the music, “Cube 3” then comes to an abrupt end – might this suggest another chapter will be added to the ‘Cube’ saga in future? Who knows!
Hopefully “Cube 3” will open up the band to a whole new legion of fans. It’s an album that might need several spins to grow on you but you’d be missing a treat if you let it pass. | ||||||||||||||||||
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