Casket Feeder – Servants of Violence
Release Date: 20th May 2022
Label: Self Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Metallic Hardcore
FFO: Malevolence, Entombed, Stamping Ground.
Review By: Rory Bentley
The UK is killing the Metallic Hardcore game right now. Whether it be Malevolence absolutely schooling everyone during last year’s festival season, or Employed to Serve kicking onto the next level and beating the fuck out of unsuspecting arena crowds all over Europe, this rainy island is the place to go when you want ripping metal riffs and disgusting beat-downs. With that said, it’s time to throw another hat in the ring because Casket Feeder have arrived , and they’re here to break faces and wreck stages!
Straight out the gate, a lot of my boxes get checked. Gnarly noun-verber band name that made me laugh out loud? Tick. Buzzsaw Entombed guitar tone? Yup. Bringing the riff back in but slower with an intensity that makes me want to yeet myself into a different continent? You’d better believe it.
I really want to give you guys a more professional review than this, but I have a bit of a reputation for losing all critical faculties when a band gets this style of music right, and by Odin’s beard do they get things right here!
Servants of Violence is one of the most fully realised debuts I’ve heard all year, where a band has taken clear and obvious influences and merged them into something completely cohesive and, more importantly, unique to them. Merging Scandinavian riffing with thugged out hardcore is, of course, not a new thing and could easily come off as derivative, but Casket Feeder have managed to tweak their formula over the course of some strong EPs to produce an immaculate lesson in sonic alchemy that sits beautifully between Extreme Metal and streetwise Hardcore without diluting either element.
My first point of comparison was the aforementioned Malevolence, but instead of melding the sludgy grooves of Crowbar and Pantera with their brutal pit-igniting anthems, they lean heavily on the tremolo-lead Death and Black Metal popularised on the continent.
To The Hounds Go The Faithful and Mask Of Sorrow offer the optimum one-two punch to show you what these guys are all about. The former kicks in with sludgy riffs and Corrosion of Conformity-style guitar harmonies before igniting intro a breathless flurry of Hardcore savagery and pinched harmonics. The latter wastes no time accelerating into warp-speed, as Melodeath picking is moulded into more Punk-influenced rhythmic patterns. The note choices are from the At The Gates playbook, but the execution feels more at home in the context of the kind of adrenaline-fuelled attack of a dive-bar destroying Sick Of It All rager.
I love the balance of vocal approaches here, which sits perfectly between bestial death growls and a larynx-lacerating Hardcore bark, adding variety to each song and also letting fans of both styles have their cake and beat it. Sorry there had to be a pun somewhere in this review, and I’ve done much worse, so count yourself lucky!
As much as the deft blending of cold Nordic Metal is a joy to be lacerated by (looking at you, Tyranny Begins), the band are also perfectly proficient at caving your skull in with a seething Crust-Punk assault. Vulture Culture is a filthy D-beat joyride that never relinquishes its malicious chokehold once it’s got its tattooed hands clenched around your breathing apparatus, and the fact that these more route one compositions are used sparingly means they draw more blood when they show up, while making you appreciate the boiling cauldron of style-splicing that makes up the bulk of the record. When a Hardcore-leaning album ventures past the 25 minute mark, this kind of variety is paramount to preventing listener fatigue.
So as far as debuts go, these casket lads have totally smashed it. They’ve digested their core influences, mixed them around and spat out a sound that is both entirely cohesive and distinctive to them. While I’m totally happy to bask in the foulness of the album for a while yet, I’m very intrigued to see what they can add to expand on this foul concoction when it comes to writing their sophomore album. The future of British Metallic Hardcore is in safe hands, my friends and this writer will be coming out of mosh retirement when they come to pillage my town.
(4.5 / 5)
