Cuscuta – Fodder for the Callous (2015)

Genre: Atmospheric black metal,

Country Of Origin: Colorado, America

Tracklisting:


1. Rented Room (9:23)

2. The Last Graveyard (20:23)

3. A Screw Fell to the Ground (14:50)

4. On My Deathbed (5:56)



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There are albums that you know will be fantastic immediately. Fodder for the Callous sends chills into your ears right from the first song’s intro. The atmosphere on this album is like a thick, black fog so bleak and all-consuming that you think you’ll never see the light again—absolutely suffocating. You can feel the crushing despair and darkness seeping into your body through the entire four songs.
All of this is an extremely poignant reminder of the world we live in. Cuscuta’s concept for this album was to take four poems by Xu Lizhi and put them to music. No one knows better than Xu Lizhi of the abysmal vice called capitalism that is constricting the necks of the world and driving the life out of our bodies. After writing some fantastically depressing poetry, Xu Lizhi committed suicide because of the horrible life he led as a factory worker for Foxconn. Dylan’s music perfectly emulates the moods that Xu Lizhi portrays in his poetry. His haunting screams belt out the defeated lyrics like in “A Screw Fell to the Ground” : “A screw fell to the ground / in this dark night of overtime / plunging vertically, lightly clinking / it won’t attract anyone’s attention / just like last time / on a night like this / when someone plunged to the ground.“
Fodder for the Callous is filled with haunting guitar work, both distorted and clean, and none of it is remotely uplifting at all. The only song that breaks this mood ever so slightly is the finale, “On My Deathbed,” which I interpret as the feeling of relief that death brings an end to suffering. If you’re in an anti-capitalist mood, this is the perfect album for you. If you’re in any other mood, this album will bring you where you need to be to enjoy the music. Haunted, tortured, angry, depressed, and feeling helpless, Cuscuta has created a masterpiece with this album. Though 2015 had some amazing albums, none of them touched me as profoundly as this one. Turn on Fodder for the Callous and you won’t regret it; you’ll only regret that it makes you feel like you’re perpetually driving to work, stuck in a traffic jam before you even get there, surrounded by a dark mist that you can never escape, and starting to choke.

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Cuscuta - A Receding Wild (2014)

Genre: Apocalyptic Blackened Doom

Country Of Origin : Colorado (America)

Traclisting:

1. I: Dismantle

2. II: Resistance

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Only two tracks in length (though they are lengthy tracks at 18:29 and 20:52), yet Cuscuta gets their message across perfectly. With hauntingly powerful black metal, Cuscuta tells a dark tale of how mankind has become separated from nature. The mournful cries of Evergreen are even more poignant due to the fact that his other Rocky Mountain Black Metal project, Evergreen Refuge, is completely instrumental. This welling of dissatisfaction with civilization—and mankind’s separation from the natural world—burst out of him, creating a new project to express this anger, frustration, and sorrow.
Samples from John Zerzan are aptly used to highlight these themes:
“I’d like to see a gigantic project of dismantling. Of just getting rid of all this stuff and tearing up the freeways and roads and just getting rid of all this stuff that rests on the destruction f nature—that separates us from the natural world—that has people on this treadmill to constantly work and constantly consume. . . ”
The songs move between the ominous atmospheres of the softer sections and the harsh distorted blasts of the lengthy black metal sections (and even some more doomy parts) seamlessly and without disrupting the overall mood. Occasionally a more melodic section will come along, yet it’s always appropriately dark. Evergreen really focused his dark mood for this album. Nothing seems out of place.

First album

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