Genre : Brutal Gore Metal
Country : U.S.A.
Label : Gore House Productions
Year : 2014
Listening to Cuff’s record triggered me thinking about the countless hours I’ve spent at some point of my life watching “trippy” 80’s cult horror movies. You know, these ones where a meteor falls nearby a small country town, transforming all its inhabitants to zombies looking to make a snack out of the surviving humans, or where little alien monsters spawning from the depths of the universe decide to include in their diet the humans living in the closest small (always) town. While one is conscious of the script’s degeneracy, the scarcity of the actor’s talent, the directorial insufficiency and the absurdity of the visual effects, all that are not enough to keep him from having fun watching the movie.
What does any of this have to do with Cuff? Well. Their riffs are more or less played thousands of times, their technical abilities are just above “apprentice” level, their sound is a sewer where the sickening vocals along with the primitive drum machine stand out as the most tragic of them all. Never the less, instead of cursing the gods for my fate having to suffer through this, I find myself eagerly searching for the repeat button. Masochism? Perhaps. Exaggeration in their description? Sure thing. Cuff has a strong touch for exaggeration, anyway. Might be that my subconscious was aching for something so outrageous, close to the “cult” level.
The band categorizes its music as slam sci-fi grind. Makes sense. A large portion of their songs consists of slow-paced, slam rhythms, with scarce blastbeats and avoiding the incessant technical excess which many brutal gore bands practice, failing to achieve the desideratum, i.e. to engineer a morbid atmosphere. As for the term sci-fi, it applies mainly in the lyrical concept, finding inspiration in the foretold cult cinematography, together with some sparse synths, aiming to illustrate an –out of this world- musical scenery.
“Transient Suffering Through The Ergosphere” is addressed to a very certain fan base. If you dig entering an extravagant, over your head (and brains) gore trance, you need to listen to the album….again and again….until you feel disgusted of yourself, of the ones around you, the planet, or all of the above! Happy New Year!
3.5/6