Poised to become this year’s Nails (i.e. the “hip” brazen new extreme metal band on the block), Maryland/Pennsylvania death-noise mongers Full of Hell do appreciate brevity like Nails, as so reflected across their third full-length, Trumpeting Ecstasy. Lined up with go-to producer/engineer Kurt Ballou, Trumpeting Ecstasy possesses that familiar garish sonic barrage that seemingly only Ballou can pull out of his bands. It takes otherwise primitive songs and mutates them to capacity, thus making Full of Hell sound undeniably caustic in a fractured amount of time.
Some notable guests are in on the fun, like Aaron Turner (Sumac, ex-Isis), Nate Newton (Converge) and Canadian singer/songwriter Nicole Dollanganger. However none outside of Dollanganger have much of an impact, with the female vocalist adding a certain degree of air and melody to the title track, which is the album’s main departure song. Per what is now the norm for bands of this variety, you’re going to get small doses of mutated Swedish d-beat riffing; i.e. the classic Stockholm tone simply shoved into a new, modernized blender for maximum impact. And that’s where the decisive spearing of “Branches of Yew,” the ferocity of “Crawling Back to God” and the noise-domineering “At the Cauldron’s Bottom” come into view.
Yeah, there’s a degree of experimentation here, but you don’t get the sense Full of Hell want to use it as much as they’d like to throw their weight around in minimal bursts. Some may find Full of Hell’s succinct, unbridled form of extremity to be an unyielding display of power, while others may want more out of the band. Get in and get out, they say.