Album Review: Full of Hell - Coagulated Bliss
Reviewed by Rob Barker
Coagulated Bliss is the sixth full-length album by the Maryland heavyweights Full of Hell. A crushing blend of heaviness and unrelenting brutality - even the quieter (if I can call them quieter?) few seconds here and there within the tracks doesn't take away from the devastating power of this hate-fuelled audio attack. The short track length for most of the songs make for a powerful, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it punch to the face, not dissimilar to Converge’s No Heroes/Jane Doe era car-crash-level madness.
Full of Hell credit three vocalists within their line-up, taking full advantage of screams, yelps and guttural carnage that multiple vocalists can offer. The album opens up with Half Life of Changelings, introducing the listener to what may initially be mistaken for a relatively upbeat riff that creates a false sense of (in)security in those first few seconds before unleashing the punishing carnage that makes you listen to the band in the first place. We swiftly move on to Doors of Mental Agony with its pounding beat making the adrenaline pump further, capping off with the filthiest of short-lived outros, before progressing again to Transmuting Chemical Burns, which could almost be an anthem for a Monster Energy Drink fuelled frat party if frat boys were into black metal.
For those who are fans of Full of Hell’s collaboration with The Body – and let’s face it, if you’re in the territory of Full of Hell, that’s probably you – Fractured Bonds to Mecca introduces itself with a most-welcome recall of THAT snare sound from the beginning of One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache, before moving into a slower, but by no means less heavy piece which is very well placed in the album, quickly getting it’s skates on again into the title track, which I can only imagine is extremely fun to play live.
Bleeding Horizon is practically a ballad with it’s 6:13 run time, beginning with deceptive clean guitar chords, before moving into the squealing noise horror you might associate with Burning Witch. This track also made me relive the nasty, echoey days of the uber-serious, unapologetic black metal akin to Gorgoroth, however the short, pretty fun riff around the end of the song makes this not JUST a black-metal worship track.
Vomiting Glass bring us back to format with another short, nasty piece, quickly moving on to Schizoid Rapture, a song which made me subconsciously bang my head with the beat whilst I was wandering around the kitchen eating cereal and playing with the cat. Next tracks Vacuous Dose, Gasping Dust and Gelding of Men continue the pounding punishment before the album climaxes with Malformed Ligature, making relistening to it all again with immediate effect a must. Second and third listens to Coagulated Bliss made me notice more and more intricacies, further showing off Full of Hell’s musicianship and songwriting abilities, proving that heaviness isn’t the only card up their sleeves. This album makes you purse your lips, nod your head, and really enjoy some killer riffs picked out from amongst the wreckage of the high-impact immensity.
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