There’s a thin and dangerous line between death metal and its bastard offshoot metalcore and Endless Curse veer dangerously close to the latter at times on this debut album, Slave Breeding Industry. Not that that should affect you if you are a fan of metalcore, but within its genre core is a lack of understanding of what constitutes real death metal. By sacrificing the “groove” for the full on barrage of riffs, the music loses itself in a blur of noise.
That is what happens over most of this album and whilst Endless Curse are not a bad band by any stretch of the imagination it is perhaps “imagination” and creativity that they miss. By over-reaching themselves to be as brutal as they can, they simply end up very boring.
This is something of a shame as Slave Breeding Industry does show glimpses of something good brewing. Songs like ‘Boiling Blood’ and ‘Listen’ contain enough moments to impress with the brutal riffs linking in with the dual vocals to great effect. The latter song even introduces some more progressive elements, albeit in very short supply. These are brief though and the full on roar of ‘I’m Too Old’ is par for the course for the rest of the album.
Without showing much inclination to move beyond their sound, Endless Curse end up sounding like a derivative idea of what death metal should sound like and this can only be a bad thing for the genre. You end up wishing that they would just slow down a touch and find that inner band that they really could be. Yes, be as brutal as you like, but temper that with moments of levity. Without doing that you end up with what is a boring release.
There will always be a market for death metal done this way and some fans will thrive off the intensity. Those if you hoping for something more measured will be disappointed though. It’s not a bad album per se, just one that suffers from lack of imagination. Hopefully next time they will expand their sound somewhat.
