Full of Hell is full of surprises for their newest record Coagulated Bliss. From the colorful artwork mistaken for an AI rendering at first, to the lyrical themes that Dylan Walker explored this time around (as opposed to the usual ‘fantastical, metaphorical shit’), this is Full of Hell taking people’s expectations and twisting them around. The new LP is their best record so far and that’s saying a lot, given that the band hasn’t lost their touch in any way.
“Half Life of Changelings” opens up with an almost catchy pop hook until the song bares its’ fangs to devour the listener with grinding hellfire. “Doors to Mental Agony” stomps around all troglodyte-like then slaps you silly with a grind chorus as Dylan sings about ‘a hundred dead ends, a thousand dead friends’. “Transmuting Chemical Burns” straight up features a chugga chugga riff that’s whiplash inducing and guaranteed to please a wide swathe of metal aficionados.
On the next track though, Full of Hell experiments with pop structured songwriting as The Body’s influences creep up with “Fractured Bonds of Mecca”. Air raid sirens coupled with a mechanical drum beat and death growls proved to be a winning combo. The title track bounces around with a noise rock riff which I had the pleasure of experiencing live last year. Total earworm for days, no doubt.Drone rears its’ ugly head up with the record’s longest track “Bleeding Horizon”, as the band wrecks everything in their path like a gigantic molten lava slug engulfing everything in flames.
Now, back to what Full of Hell does best, the grinding dissonance and bottled fury of the next four tracks. “Vomiting Glass” sounds exactly like that, while “Schizoid Rupture” mesmerizes with a hypnotic verse and then turns around with a schizophrenic guitar fuckery.” Noticeably absent are the noise tracks of albums past, giving way for more various displays of power with the one-note hammering of “Gelding of Men” and the closer “Malformed Ligature” which opens up with a Jacob Bannon guest spot and ends with not-so-ecstatic trumpeting.
15 years in, and Full of Hell just keeps doing whatever the hell they want with their sound, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Coagulated Bliss is the soundtrack of the American dream, and the inevitable horrors that came with it.