Manchester-based black metal outfit Caïna have chosen to commemorate 10 years of embittered existence as a solo project by introducing new musicians and an outside producer into the fold.
It’s a brave step for mainman Andrew Curtis-Brignell, allowing human input into his devoutly anti-human manifesto, and the result, his fifth full-length, is arguably his most refined to date, containing as broad a palette of influences as has come to be expected.
Within the furious five minutes of Applicant/Supplicant alone, muscular, d-beat driven hardcore squares up to seething second wave clatter within electrified cosmic realms. He is mining a vein of inspiration well explored by USBM in 2014, but with distinctly dour British antipathy, hitting a gloriously sweet spot between gravity and groove, and revealing surprisingly tender moments of emotion when least expected. The most notorious UK black metal bands often look to the past for inspiration, but Caïna, in offering a starker, more urbane and forward-thinking perspective, evoke distinctly relatable 21st-century anxieties, disavowing embarrassing bigotries of old in a thrilling outpouring of disgust for our entire species.
Via Broken Limbs
