Tuscoma – Gu-cci
Release Date: 30th June 2022
Label: Landmine Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Blackened Metal
FFO: Deafheaven, Sólstafir, Alcest.
Review By: Paul Cairney
I must preface this review by stating that I had never listened to Tuscoma before, and so my first listen was on a single fired through by Bossman Dave. I was immediately intrigued. Since then, I have flirted in and out of love with their 3rd album, ‘Gu-cci’.
Straight from the opening track, ‘Emotions Divided by Lights’, you are hit with a riff that, to be blunt, shouldn’t work. It does work…very well, with its discordant nature embedding itself in your psyche. That is, until it doesn’t work and the jagged nature of the tune just annoys you. That is….until your next listen makes you love it again. I have never listened to a song that creates polar opposites in the way this one does.
I have come to the conclusion that this is a good thing. ‘Gu-cci’ is a heavy album. The band themselves are difficult to place in any one genre, with the heaviness being the one key constant throughout. Encyclopaedia Metallum, describes them as being ‘Post-Black Metal’, so I will stick to that description. Tuscoma, however, are more than this.
Throughout ‘Gu-cci’, you are left with a profound sense of unease, a feeling that somebody with wicked intent is lurking in your house. You know that they are nearby, but you can’t find them, no matter how hard you look. This allows the album to breath and grow within its own space. It is also the reason why, on occasion, you may not enjoy the listen.
I have listened to this album on more occasions that I should – in fact, the album is released in little over 45 minutes as I type this review, (who releases albums on a Thursday FFS), so I will be slightly late in getting this review in – sorry, Bossman!
At only 38 minutes long, the 5 tracks are over before you know it, and despite the bleakness on display, it is over all too soon. As the final, 14-minute-long track, ‘Aris Dazed’ disappears from your earholes, you will be left with a Matrix-style dilemma. The blue pill plays the record again, the red puts it back in the sleeve.
Either decision is correct!
(3.5 / 5)
