There is plenty of heavy music that’s aiming to be the most destructive, infuriated thing on the earth, but oftentimes it comes off as all gimmick, not much venom. You know when you hear music that is actively hating, spilling out the most acidic fluids from humanity’s rotten belly that you almost wonder if it’s a little too much. I feel more uncomfortable than I care to feel.

Swiss destroyers Rorcal never make you second guess whether they mean it. You can feel it in the sonic battering you take from front to back, the black metal attack that borders on industrial heat, the pure scorn and sobering reality bombarding your brain. That continues on their sixth record “Silence,” a title that could not be less indicative of what you’re about to hear. The band—vocalist Yonni Chapatte, guitarist Diogo Almeida, guitarist/sampler Jean-Philippe Schopfer, bassist Jeremy Spagnolo, drummer/sampler Ron Lahyani—is in full nuclear annihilation mode from the start, pulling you through mental conflict, terminal disappointment, and the uncurable wounds from our pasts that still grind away at our anxieties to this day.

“Early Mourning” starts with noise sizzling before the elements combust, howls spreading, panicked energy sprawling. The guitars swell as hell is unleashed, darkness folding in on itself, the drubbing coming early and often, everything disappearing into mystical winds. “Childhood is a Knife in the Throat” is incendiary from the start, mauling and darting, peeling the top layer from eyeballs. The playing divebombs as the blackness increases, jerking rhythms cracking ribs, the guitars flushing and disorienting, mechanical waves making psychosis a certainty. “The Worst in Everything” is another positive jam, pulverizing and dizzying, your lungs taking in far too much filth for you to breathe. Riffs tear at your mental capacities, destroying with intensity and battering terror, quaking to its final resting place. “Extinguished Innocence” lets sounds hang in the air as things get ominous and uncomfortable, desperate wails making it feel like there is no hope at all. More on that in a bit. The playing goes into a moodier stretch, bringing thunder and retching howls, spreading misery as far as the eye can see. The pressure builds as everything implodes, taking your safety and well-being with it into hell.

“Hope is a Cancer” is bloody and destructive, an impossibly damaging burst, stomping on guts as you lather in blood and shame. Molten leads turn bone to gelatin, flattening with calculated heat, spiraling into the ground as the shrieks fade. “Constant Void” is ashen and punishing, the guitars zapping with laser force right through your skull. The playing slowly turns the vice as the roars corrode, bashing and crushing, making you absorb the complete force that’s coming for you with a bloodlust. “Under the Nails” soaks in black metal zaps, pushing frenetically as everything weighs down with global force. The leads glimmer as harrowing warnings loom on the horizon, a slashing assault pushing its way into your corner of safety, carving paths into static squalls. Closer “No Alleviation, Even in Death” dawns in an engine-like gust, spreading and heating as shrieks maul, lurching through absolute darkness. The playing digs deeper, finding new waves of sadness and frustration, the drums splattering as disorientation sets into your mind. The track blasts back in and twists guts, the howls char flesh, and the punishment pulls you into the void before ending abruptly.

If you had any idea coming into “Silence” that you might not be dragged to the bottoms of a sea of despair, then you very much fucked up. Any journey into Rorcal’s realm must be done so with care and the understanding you will witness horrors and agony that can’t simply be wiped from your brain. This band and record stick a dagger so far into the heart of hope that the beating stops immediately, and any dreams of feeling positive or finding motivation to carry on are snuffed cruelly, with you left to wallow in the salty ocean of your tears.

For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/Rorcal

To buy the album, go here: https://hummus-records.com/product-tag/rorcal/

For more on the label, go here: https://hummus-records.com/