Mental Cruelty – Echoes of a Forlorn Land
Release Date: 23rd October 2026
Label: Century Media
Bandcamp
Genre: Progressive Deathcore
FFO: Avulsed, Lorna Shore, Upiór, Ov Sulfur, Shadow of Intent, Synestia.
Review By: Malte Brigge
I first encountered Germany’s Mental Cruelty when they opened for Kanonenfieber in February this year. They had the unenviable task of trying to warm up a crowd rabidly dedicated—we’re talking full costumes here—to the main act, and they delivered. Their particular take on deathcore has a deeply blackened edge to it, scorched in places, absolutely singed in others. Rather than demanding fealty with breakdown after breakdown, or relying on piped-in filtration effects, they just bludgeoned us, straight up. It was effective, and many a new fan walked out the doors sporting their merch. Now ready to release their fifth album, Echoes of a Forlorn Land, they’re pushing into the blackened bifrosts of Norse mythology in search of something epic.
Mental Cruelty simultaneously announce folk and symphonic intentions with the sweeping, cinematic intro Weltennacht: wolves howl, airy voices mix with horns and clean picking until the heavy hits. Jonathan Koltun’s drums, though over-reverbed on the snare, make an immediate impact as it rises into Fenrir’s garroting tremolo riffs. The ear is immediately hooked while the twin vocal attack of Lukas Nicolai and Nahuel Lozano bridges between high, blackened rasps, deep, aggressive death roars, semi-clean harmonies, and occasional forays into that sunken deathcore vastness. Backing the band, symphonic additions are meaningfully woven into the songs as critical components, disappearing for minutes at a time, returning at carefully selected moments throughout the album. They aren’t employed to artificially generate atmosphere or pretend at the grandiose; their timely use prevents the sound from becoming melodramatic or fallacious.
Beyond these moves into the symphonic, Mental Cruelty also began toying with folk elements on 2023’s Zwielicht. Echoes of the Fallen Land is bolder with the folk, but seems a little unsure what to do with it. Blood for Blood starts with a brief plucking of the lyre (I think—there’s no listing of instruments or performances outside the core band); Helheim opens with a melismatic voice and MENA instrumentation; Raise the Raven Banner has a bit of throat singing and a didgeridoo at the start; Frost plays a bow harp and Nordic harmonies in place of a midsong breakdown. None of these bits are more than a few seconds long, and, on an album mostly dedicated to Norse mythology, some of the choices are odd. It’s well-executed but thematically puzzling. The strangest choice, though, is the inclusion of Cry of Bateriel, from Judeo-Christian apocrypha, which opens with a sparkling, 80s pop synth and leads into what’s basically a (pretty good) blackened power metal song. While these decisions make for interesting individual song elements, they create an album that’s more than a little scattered.
Though few of those elements play a serious role in the development of structure of the songs they are attached to, the songs themselves hit hard, with cutting tremolos, massive power chords, furious drumming, and surprising melodies. It may be scattered, but it keeps your attention. Cry of Bateriel could be a Saidan song; Raise the Raven Banner turns what could have been a tropey breakdown into an off-beat, bell-infused slowdown that bounces back into the massive, crowd-pleasing “THIS! IS! WAAAARRR!” refrain. Ride of the Valkyries, the highly atmospheric closer, weaves orchestration through its two main parts to build genuine, dramatic impact with its magnificent crescendo. Far from the brutal deathcore band they started out as, Mental Cruelty is taking a turn for the epic, and it suits them. This developing identity may still be rough around the edges, but Echoes of a Fallen Land establishes that the band won’t settle for clichés, and it at least points to a very interesting direction for them to follow.
The album’s a bit mixed up, but my feelings are far more positive than not. There are some odd choices, to be sure; the band is distinctly unsettled, not content to take an easy path. They are exploring their voice, and Echoes of a Forlorn Land may prove to be that important, transitional experiment that leads to greater discoveries. The range of sounds and ideas shows a band deep in a creative process that maybe hasn’t ironed itself out yet, but the wrinkles give it a unique texture. Calling this a deathcore album is misleading; it’s got deathcore elements, like it has folk, power, melodeath, and neoclassical elements wrapped in various shades of black. Mental Cruelty had my interest; now they are gaining my attention, and I’m very curious to see where this path leads.
(3.5 / 5)
