I
Deathwish Inc.
Here's the original review in italics from No Funeral #1 (August 2006), with some additional commentary and, most importantly,
I know this doesn’t actually pertain to the music on the record but, with my inner record collector screaming at the top of his lungs, I have to mention this and then we can get down to business. Every band that cares even the least little bit about the packaging of their albums should have Jake Bannon do all of their artwork.
I love all of his Atomic designs material and Cursed is no exception. The digipak for “One” is one of the most elegant designs I’ve ever seen for a CD. The black and white artwork (along with the accompanying layout) placed on the cardboard supplements the dark and disturbed music within.
Back to business, “One” by Cursed is face melting hardcore. Simply put, it’s Black Flag and Negative Approach played with Entombed’s guitar tone, but it’s never that simple with these Toronto natives. Their music is ferocious and the lyrics are sinister. Some have complained that this band is simply volume over ability, but I could not disagree with that more. First, it’s ex-members of the Swarm, so what do you what? Second, these guys write too many good riffs and put to many clever time changes into their brand of hardcore to dismiss their musicianship.
These guys are probably in their apartment in Toronto, planning the invasion of Buffalo, and trying to decide for how much they’ll ransom it back to Albany. Great stuff. These guys wrote an incredibly nasty song about their own conception (1974). How fucked is that? I love it.
Does Headbanger’s Ball got you down? Tired of metalcore, Trustkill, and “bros going off”? Then Cursed is the cure for what ails ya. Hardcore the way it was meant to be played. There’s a little bit of a metal influence to keep things interesting, but “One” is still punk as fuck.
What's changed between then and now? Not much. Cursed is considered one of this decade's best hardcore bands and this album still rules. I still dig Jake Bannon's artwork and it totally suck that Cursed broke up.
\m/
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