Cursed Excruciation — Arcane Diabolism
Latin America has a long history of creating malevolent music and Cursed Excruciation is one such example. It’s a one-man black metal band hailing from Viamão, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil and was formed in 2020.
Diego aka Trance Of The Undead, the mastermind behind Cursed Excruciation is also involved with a handful of other solo bands, namely Clavis Inferni, Lunar Kingdom, Saturnian Gate and Trance Of The Undead. His music is entirely rooted in old-school black/death metal soil, paying an informal or better yet, an infernal tribute to the old comrades of his continent like Sarcofago, Holocausto, Mystifier and even beyond Latin America, a homage to old Rotting Christ, Necromantia, and even a faint reference to early Celtic Frost or Hellhammer- without the punky drums. Generally, Cursed Excruciation is in parallel and in absolute relation with the particular black metal sound that signified the genre to what it is now.
Arcane Diabolism is monolithic per se and a fast-paced album with notable low-speed parts. Concrete and determined in its solid black metal identity, encapsulates all the elements that transcend it to a cult-sounding apocalypse. Mid to high-pitch guitars without crunchiness and riffs that are forging either chainsaw-like patterns or -in contrast- doomy moments that can easily stun, similar production, sporadic use of delay on the vocals that haunt the voice even more. The synth introductions and the ritualistic chanting are the fine-tuning to a solid, crushing, back-in-time black metal work. With death metal elements and even some heavy metal details that extend the sound with epic-ness and darkness merged.
With the approach Diego has chosen, it is difficult for something to go wrong and by listening to the album, his musicianship is proven; he knows very well the traits of the art. Obviously, Arcane Diabolism is not something that hasn’t been done before, but it is very well crafted within an apparent black metal formula that is (obviously) finite. This is not a problem at all and all that remains is a solidly executed album with eight fresh compositions materialized in an old-school way and venturing steadily and gloriously.