Finally, after literally years of waiting to hear this new Integrity album and a couple of teaser releases that barely whet my appetite for this monster, The Blackest Curse sees the light of day with all the power of a dark, ominous poison cloud alighting on the bland morass of what passes for hardcore punk these days. Admittedly, as I get older, my tolerance for certain types of music wanes; but Dwid and company always seems to get me as almost everything that Integrity is involved with is at least compelling to check out for one's self. There are several guest appearances on the album as well with Boyd Rice
Integrity definitely pulls out all the stops on this record; in every facet The Blackest Curse proves that it stands up with some of the best records in the band's oeuvre. The music is blisteringly tight and the attack is vicious sounding, save for the equally excellent slower, moodier moments of the record (check "Before The VVorld VVas Young" and its acoustic moments). The rhythmic attack of "The Last Great Séance" is quite good and rather beefy sounding while the guitar riffs will have even the most stalwart metal hessians banging their heads. "Learn to Love the Lie" is still full of the same bombast and brute force as when I first heard it on the Deathwish sampler last year, and the noisy, trudging opening to "The Invocation of the Eternally Coiling Serpent" provides some of the more sinister sounding moments on the album. One of my two favorite tracks (the other being "Learn to Love the Lie") to be found on The Blackest Curse is "The Process of Illumination" with its crunching guitars and screaming guitar leads and Dwid's mad ranting over the proceedings.
The Blackest Curse houses ten tracks of vintage sounding Integrity that certainly hearkens back to yonder days when the Melnick brothers were serving time in the band; but at the same time, the album certainly is not a retread of that era with the sole original member surrounding himself with people attempting to recapture that magic. Obsessive listening to this album has made me realize one thing about The Blackest Curse for certain; this is the most engaging Integrity album for me personally since Humanity Is The Devil, and all ten songs show a band near the top of their game wielding all the musically might and brutish power at their disposal. For a record that literally took years to complete, The Blackest Curse delivers on all things Integrity: blazing metallic hardcore (check), powerful vocals (check), lyrical content from the darker aspects of human thought (check); maybe the only thing missing from this release is any sort of real controversy surrounding it (like the band used to kick up years ago). In any case, this is a must own record for anyone into heavy music, hardcore, metal, what have you; surely, one of the great albums from Integrity, "Through the shadows of forever, we will return again
" and yes they have.
