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UNKURED
As Reality Melts… EP

Self-released (2013)
Rating: 7.5/10

Hard to believe this Ohio quartet has churned out six demo tapes since their inception back in 2010. As Reality Melts… is a five track EP that has a strong demo feel to it, and yet somehow it works, made all the more mature by that strong yet deadly bass courtesy of Ben Stanton and the dense guitar sound of Cody Knarr, who also provides the screeching vocals. Knarr is accompanied by rhythm guitarist Matt Byrd, and alongside drummer Adam Green these guys make quite a deathly noise.

Certainly my favourite modern thrash band has to be Vektor with their isolating structures and sci-fi inspired soundscapes, and I’d say that UnKured occupy the same remote wastes, combining deathly thrash with those clanking early Voivod-styled rasps.

As Reality Melts… shows a band not interested in keeping up with the Joneses who for the most part are all too obsessed with bringing back the buffoonery of the mid-to-late 80s thrash scene. Instead, these guys inject a far darker edge to their sound, reminding me of some of the great German bands from the 80s such as Kreator, Sodom and Destruction, alongside more complex, cavernous structures – think Sadus and Canada’s Obliveon, but far more compressed and guttural.

UnKured are clearly talented musicians and a band I’ll be keeping an eye on, because I’m wondering where they’ll go next? The outfit effortlessly shift between tempos and have an eye for the intricate while employing those old school dynamics. Vocally, Knarr really sneers through the mic as if strands of barbed-wire were being forced into his gullet, while the drums patter across the opus like drops of black, albeit bombarding rain.

EP opener ‘Before Us, Heaven Trembles’ see the band going straight for the weak point, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere with those choking guitars and thickening grooves.

UnKured are at home with several styles within the thrash genre, fusing together the jazzed up, albeit far more gnarled rhythms of Atheist with the inaccessible intricacies of Anacrusis as ‘Dark Dominion’ clatters through the rusty speakers on another dense riff and hyper drum. This is vicious stuff indeed and yet all the while played with startling precision.

Check out the black billowing smoke that spews from the riffs of ‘Taking The Abyss’. UnKured adopt a very dirty sound, possibly helped by the rather low budget production, which adds a sense of stuffiness to the mix, and whilst the solos are at times lost in the fumes, the bass and drums really do jar the bones.

The title track is a sinister, old school Euro thrash work out, the band clearly using chain-link fence, iron bars and scrap metal debris to create their apocalyptic sound. Rarely do the band let the listener in to their stark void; that bass alone means that anyone who trespasses too close to those wrought iron gates will get a shuddering crack to the skull.

I’d be so interested to hear what these guys could do with a slightly crisper production, but one can’t fail to be moved by the toxic clouds of ‘Creations In Abomination’, the sort of jolting thrash track that’ll leave you quaking at the knees due to its jarring complexity.

I can’t wait for the full-length opus, but a bulletproof vest is advised.

Neil Arnold

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