Full of Hell is an American grindcore band formed in 2009. Trumpeting Ecstasy, their third studio album, was met with positive reviews when released two years ago. I personally put it in my top 15 albums of 2017. I do like some grindcore bands and albums, but it's not my go-to metal. So as one of the few I do like, I had high expectation for their fourth studio album, and Relapse debut, Weeping Choir. But also unsure if they would continue the same musical path.
At first look, it seems that it does. As it was the case with its predecessor, Weeping Choir features 11 tracks in 25 minutes. The album starts with the same brutality and the first three songs display that voracious headbanging metal madness that I remember. "Thundering Hammers" impressed me the most for its fantastic groove. The album is dynamic with pauses, samples, tempo changes and two vocal styles. The slow tempo, dark and long song, "Armory of Obsidian Glass" is a haunting tune and very interesting example of this dynamic applied well. Full of Hell use of electronics and samples is accentuated in Weeping Choir and that's something that I generally don't appreciate much. One of the only songs above 3 minutes "Rainbow Coil" is just noise samples, I had to skip it. The good news for me is that "Aria of Jeweled Tears" follows it with a good usage of samples (machine guns?) in a song that could be mistaken with The Black Dahlia Murder. "Silmaril" on the other hand focus more on deep low guttural vocals bringing this fantastic contrast and dynamic that Full of Hell do so well. The most brutal jazz song award goes to "Ygramul The Many", a subtle homage to The Dillinger Escape Plan.
This was not an album that I appreciated in the first couple of spins. And it didn't have the same impact that Trumpeting Ecstasy had on me. However, it's very easy to listen to it repeatedly due to its dynamic and short length. Later on it started to grow on me, so give it some time. There's no doubt that the album is explosive and pissed, but also very dynamic and full of interesting details. At the end of the day Weeping Choir is a worthy addition to Full of Hell discography and it certainly kept me interested in this growing band.
DR: 5
Genre: Grindcore
Released by Relapse Records on May 17th, 2019
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