SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: GELD – CURRENCY // CASTRATION

GELD
Currency // Castration
Relapse Records

Visceral, bare, aggressive, and dissonant are some of the key descriptors that come to mind when describing hardcore at the height of the scene, and while many bands keep the sound alive, they do so by altering the genre until it creates a sub-mould that challenges the definition. GELD, based out of Melbourne, has a different approach. For their newest LP Currency // Castration the band continues their style that does defy some traditional norms through expansion but offer one of the most blistering approaches to hardcore in the current age.

The sounds that resonate within this record are intense and abrasive, a feeling of release that could only be compared to something as extreme as bloodletting. The band charges through 12 tracks with hardly a moment’s breath in between pulsating riff after pulsating riff, while the drums and vocals appear so chaotic, so discordant, that is creates a whirlwind of fuzz and raw fury over insanely memorable hooks. The tracks will vary in length, with the shorter ones being as mentioned above and the others branching out into a form of psychedelia that encompasses noise as opposed to chorus, but equally as massive and transcendent. The vocals demand urgency, and while they don’t have the variety in range that I would have preferred, they are the perfect pairing with the distorted sound and bleak lyrics. But they’re not to be cherry-picked among the rest of the layers. Instead, the sound is a single unit, nothing shining above the rest, but working together in sweat-drenched, exhausted harmony.

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