Full of Hell – Broken Sword, Rotting Shield (EP)
Release Date: 16th May 2025
Label: Closed Casket Activities
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Grind, Doom.
FFO: Napalm Death, NAILS, Primitive Man.
Review By: Jeff Finch
Full of Hell is a band that is truly the embodiment of their name; the music that pulses through the speakers when Full of Hell is playing is unrelentingly vicious, a runaway train hellbent on destroying everything in its path, typically in about 20 minutes. With this new EP Broken Sword, Rotten Shield, the band keep their trademark pulverizing grind and decide to throw in moments of relative calm, making this 15 minutes a journey of ups and not-ups.
The title track wastes no time hitting us with knockout blows; blast beats, deep gutturals, piercing shrieks, lightning quick riffs, the band fits full albums worth of musical notes into a barely two minute song, as though they just kept recording after their last album, the energy unmatched and the anger palpable. A break into a clean, punchy heavy metal riff gives a moment of respite before throwing us back into the maelstrom, pained shrieks thrown over the Judas Priest-esque riff a bit of a mid-tempo shift from the band before the last thirty seconds viciously assault our senses. Followed closely by is From Dog’s Mouth, a Blessing, a song that never shifts from a mid-tempo punk beat, vocals layered and manipulated to the point they’re barely understandable, like we’re listening to someone give a speech but were way in the back and can only tell they’re powerfully projecting their voice. It’s the shortest song on the album, clocking in at 49 seconds, but this one should have been fleshed out more, because that unique combination of punk riff and layered vocals generated a captivating song.
Corpselight and Mirrorhelm are the two most unique songs on the EP, and their appreciation is likely contingent on what kind of listener you are: if the unrelenting grind and violent aural assault is what a listener wants, these songs will likely not be met with terribly strong enthusiasm or praise. The former is a two and a half minute industrial instrumental that may have shrieking in the background, but that could also be more mechanical sounds, akin to the opening of the NiN song Reptile. Meanwhile, Mirrorhelm is a minute and a half of piano, feedback, and terrifying atmosphere, a legitimately unsettling experience that feels ripped straight from The Twilight Zone.
The remaining three songs all have that Full of Hell angst and visceral pain etched deep within, but they each take different approaches in doing so. Lament of All Things is full of pained shrieking over a mid-tempo pace soaked in feedback, while Knight’s Path is rife with unrelenting double bass, deep gutturals and more shrieks, this time hidden deep in the mix, the vocals barely breaking through, the band taking an old school Norwegian Black Metal production vibe for this one, really striking that unsettling, yet heavy, chord. Finale, and longest track, To Ruin and the World’s Ending, sounds like its title, a four-minute blackened death doom track, the band playing at a glacial pace, alternating between deep, low growls and high, piercing, distressed screams, a true trek into ruins, a world ending right before us, slowly devolving into nothingness as we reach the end, a mere 15 minutes after pressing play.
Will this EP keep fans of the band happy and satiated between releases? Probably a combination: the length should bother no one, as the band typically hovers around 20 minutes per album, and there are multiple songs on here with that patented Full of Hell fury. More mid-tempo and doomy guitars take part, however, in addition to the two instrumental tracks that serve to create a tense atmosphere, if nothing else. For a barely 15 minute EP, that over a quarter of the runtime is dedicated to instrumentals that don’t sound like a standard Full of Hell track is a bit of a tough pill to swallow. But having said that, there is still a lot of excellent work in the remaining 11 minutes, so fans shouldn’t fret, the band still brought energy and enthusiasm to this release, they just chose to incorporate some different soundscapes for us to digest.
(4 / 5)
