GOLDEN RUSK
What will become of us?

I discovered Golden Rusk after watching and hearing the single "No blame no gain" on YouTube, which intrigued me with its impact and power. Naturally, I checked out the band's official page, and to my great surprise, I found that it currently boasts almost 10,000 subscribers, which says a lot for an emerging Italian band like Golden Rusk.

The album consists of 10 tracks, each with well-defined characteristics but with a common thread: brutality and violence.

I'll skip the introduction and biography (see the official site and Facebook) and get straight to the point!

The album's title, "What will become of us?", suggests a rather dark and quite pessimistic mood. The artwork depicts a devastated city in a style reminiscent of Fist of the North Star, with a gallows being flown over by ominous birds. The musical style is brutal death with hints of old school and industrial influences, but let's start from the beginning:

"Grave of dawn" is a dark and gloomy intro, perhaps a bit too long, which directly transitions into the second track "What will become of us?", which can be described as a mix of death sounds with distant industrial influences. The third track is "No blame no gain", a song perfectly chosen for the lyric video (check it out because it's well done, to say the least, epileptic...) because it is very engaging and fast. The fourth track is "Painful demise", characterized by an immediate start and full of sudden breaks. Moving on to the fifth track "As it should be", where the style changes for a moment; indeed, the album seems to pause the brutal death to approach a more contemporary and (almost) melodic death metal, some might raise an eyebrow. After reaching the halfway point, you get to "Show me your hate", perhaps the most technical and sharp song with a blistering finale; rumors on the web talk about a related video, we shall see... The next track, "Black aura", is a kind of interlude, where sadness and gloom prevail, leading to the eighth track, "Life no more": this is perhaps the most structured and unexpected of the songs, with hyper-fast opening riffs ending with a melodic finale featuring classic guitars reminiscent of early Norwegian black metal. Track no.9, "Take off the mask", is a song produced with a deliberately different sound than the rest of the album (alternative mix), perhaps more aggressive but still impactful; perfect as a live song. The tenth and final track is the demo version of "No blame no gain", recorded without any post-production intervention; it shows the work done by the producer. Okay for purists, but nothing special.

In summary, Golden Rusk has produced a solid debut album that could easily compete for the best death metal release of the year; some improvements in details wouldn't hurt, but the personality and inventiveness of the author (Maher) completely dominate the entire album.

An excellent start, keep it up!