Release Date- 27th October 2023
Label - Closed Casket Activities
Words- Tony Bliss
Ever since their emergence in 2017, END’s modus operandi has remained resolute and unchanged - destruction by any (sonic) means necessary. Indeed, with the world irreversibly going to shit before our very eyes, their signature brand of bowel-loosening heaviness isn’t just the sound of five scene veterans flexing their supergroup status - END could genuinely soundtrack the end of the world, and this, the band’s second full length, is suitably bereft of hope and steeped in the sort of scorched earth ultra-violence tailor made for plunging into the abyss. What better way to go down than amidst a storm of circle-pits and stage dives anyway?
It’s not all business as usual however, and The SIn Of Human Frailty is bulging with fresh input - although you wouldn’t quite know it from opener ‘A Predator Yourself’, one and a half minutes of panic-stricken brutality where tempos are juggled like rusty chainsaws and insistent breakdowns leave us a bloodied and broken mess. ‘Gaping Wounds Of Earth’ is equally unpleasant, changing tack somewhat as they lean on a backbone of industrialized doomcore between the blasting and blood-spitting, and from here the band continue to stretch their creative limits more and more as the album progresses. Although not quite venturing into rock-club banger terrority, ‘Thaw’ almost sounds as if NIne Inch Nails went power-violence, ‘Hollow Urn’ is all disembodied voices and squalling noise beneath it’s claustrophobic, string-led thud and closing cut ‘Leper’ eases through the gears with some eerily melodic guitars and a faintly more spacious, measured and textural approach (check out that absolutely curb-stomping final minute though).
Having said this, END remain in crush-kill-destroy mode for the majority of these thirty minutes, and for all the records dynamic endeavor, each new idea remains a heroically savage attempt to wrench your spine clean from your body, and slots neatly into the bands all out war approach. ‘Twice Devoured Kill’ (featuring Pig Destroyers peerless J.R Hayes) is a certified jaw-shatterer, a riot of two-step fun and mathcore intensity, whereas ‘Worthless Is The Lamb’ might be the most gruesome extreme metal ripper the band has committed to tape yet, ambushing us with nail-bomb blasts of speed, submerging us in boiling sludge and blindsiding us with the thrum and buzz of dark-hearted electronica (not to mention an ear-piercing cameo from Full Of Hell’s Dylan Walker).
It’s time to face facts - The Sin Of Human Frailty is the sort of nails-hard experience that practically none of END’s peers can hope to match, and not only loses the dividing line between extreme metal and hardcore in a blur of sheer, unforgiving darkness, but stands apart in it’s unflappable desire to tear you limb from limb. These lads are onto something special, and this album will crush anything and everything in its path.
8.5/10
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