Band: Kruelty
Album: A Dying Truth
Genre: Hardcore, Metal
Country: Japan
Release date: 30th of April 2020
Released via: Daymare Recordings, Profound Lore Records
Cover Artwork © Daymare Recordings
As a die-hard fan and eager follower of the Hate5Six Youtube Channel I came across a liveset of the band Kruelty during his travels in Japan, whose blunt thrashing convinced me from the first second and whose releases so far have been listened to by me on a regular basis. After a few EPs and a split release the full-length debut was presented with A Dying Truth and there is a lot going on on this one. For fans of nasty Metal / Hardcore this is an absolute must-listen this year that you should definitely know if you are into Xibalba as much as you are into Coffins.
For the ones among you that did not have Kruelty on their radar so far it needs to be said that this combo from Tokyo consists of 5 people who previously played in several Beatdown and Hardcore bands and now get along together in this far more Metal-driven project without neglecting their roots at all.
Kruelty are not playing around for long and shove you even deeper into your armchair with their thickly produced sound. As a warmup we have a short but quite dreadful intro sample that serves as a great intro for the album before hell breaks loose and those Japanese recklessly start to let rip.
A Dying Truth is a hybrid combining gloomy Death / Doom with Beatdown-driven Hardcore, where the shares consistently shift, which is also a point that evens the balance. The tracks are overall very primitive, blunt and straightforward but nevertheless do not jump onto the current Caveman riff hypetrain, but rather deliver their nasty heaviness to the listener with their Hardcore elements. This is underpinned by brutal breaks that are introduced with sinister halts in speed and concise guitar solos and thus operate absolutely violently while simultaneously animating kickbox moves at home already.
The riffing is pretty decent in general as well and delivers massive material for fans of rawly produced exposure to violence. It would be possible to imply one or another Hardcore element more heavily in the future in order to construct more diversity. The album is quite easy listening inits entirety but is not able to serve sufficient instrumental diversity apart from the mosh parts. Next to the solid vocals – that are absolutey fitting but seem a little monotonous over time – this is my only point for criticism, though, concerning this massive longplayer.
The drums, however, absolutely pick me up, especially due to their pretty tinny sounding snare, and are my absolute icing on the cake regarding the sound while simultaneously marking the node of the album with which Kruelty connect their Metal and Hardcore elements and thus also succeed to mamintain the excitement of their sound throughout the length of an entire album.
Anyone who is now interested in the physical version of this album now still has the chance to purchase the vinyl via Daymare Recordings or Profound Lore Records. Me, personally – I can fully recommend buying this record before it is gone already.
Kruelty knock out a true treasure of mosh-driven Metal with A Dying Truth that, because of its frequent Hardcore parts, tends to primarily convince fans from this genre instead of full-blooded Metalheads. Nevertheless, these Japanese laid down a solid debut full-length with this album that only forces you to wanna kick, box or scratch around. Definitely a worthy sparring enemy!
★★★★★★★★☆☆
8/10
Favorite Tracks:
“Ancient Words”
“CKS”
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