Dúnmharú – the Irish for murder. Does that set the tone fairly quickly? It should. One of the latest buds beginning to blossom in Ireland’s black metal renaissance of sorts is the two-man raw black metal outfit Dúnmharú with this, their first full-length album “Curses Come Home”, released via New York label Broken Limbs Recordings.
First started by Cathal Hughes, nearly two years ago, Dúnmharú only began to take formidable shape last winter when the services of drummer Ross O’Connor were enlisted and the band’s primitive black metal material began to manifest itself into something very real, and something rather imposing with their first release “October” being released at the start of this year and now “Curses Come Home” sees the band continuing their journey in swift fashion.
A glimpse at the artwork suggests raw, unpolished and unforgiving black metal that tips its hat to Norway. If you thought that then you’re on the money. “Curses Come Home” is predictable in that regard but not so much so that the album is a bore to listen through. Anything but. This is invigorating, orthodox black metal savagery executed with reckless abandon all perpetrated by a dark, black beating heart.
And while the production is rather abrasive and unrefined, it isn’t ridden with the same lo-fi mire that many of their influences’ most infamous records are. There’s a judicial use of modern recording at play here but mercifully it doesn’t render “Curses Come Home” sterile. That becomes clear when the grim lead guitars instigate the album on “What Dwells”.
Meanwhile, second track “Recede” is brimming with a black ‘n’ roll-like quality, and moves the record away from sombre airs. “One Journey” then takes the band back into gloomy territory and is a lesson in solid mid tempo black metal.
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The live drums are vital to this album and certainly help in preventing it ever being discarded as another bedroom black metal project. The material is rife with an animalistic vigour, due to the near immediacy with which it was written when O’Connor joined the band allowing “Curses Come Home” to take shape and be recorded. The only flaw with the album’s production is on the track “Dawn”. The lead riffs are quite conspicuously lower in the mix than before and it jolts the album’s flow for a moment, but is whipped back into line again by “Dusk”.
The title track closes off this affair with more dark, ghostly guitars washed over by cascading vocals, swaying between searing shrieks and more guttural growls that augment in intensity bringing the record to a satisfying close.
For a debut release, Dúnmharú have just about hit the nail on the head with “Curses Come Home”, it’s a grim and foreboding effort that, while concise, has little superfluity or anything in the way of filler, just pure black metal wrath.
“Curses Come Home” is only available digitally from the Broken Limbs Bandcamp.
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