Known for a brand of HM2 worship so ferocious that if you listen to it on full volume it would actually violate some noise pollution laws, Hull natives Mastiff have been one of British heavy music’s best kept secrets for the best part of a decade now. Few bands in the world, let alone these fair islands, can match the northern nihilists when it comes to sheer aural punishment, as demonstrated perfectly on 2021’s Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth. That record, released in the aftermath of one of the darkest times in modern history, captured the mood perfectly, despite being mainly written beforehand.
Influences in the band’s sound could be defined as the nastier, more desperate forms of death metal mixed with sludgier elements, at least in the past. When it comes to Deprecipice, things have taken on a distinctly more chaotic hardcore approach. Think about the fury and almost hopeless anger that comes from Trap Them, END and All Pigs Must Die mixed with a dollop of British crust dirt and you’re pretty much on the money.
Before you even press play, the album art sums up the album perfectly. Designed by longtime collaborator Paul Phillips from True Spilt Milk Designs, the scene of a nameless person falling into a grey, endless, repeating void is incredibly apt. Not just a metaphor for life today, it brings together the uneasy, despairing nature of the record.
Opener ‘Bite Radius’ is the aural equivalent of being given a vicious beating by someone you love and trust, with the wall of harsh guitars feeling like it’s closing in on you at all times. Jim Hodge screams and snarls like few others, inviting comparisons to END vocalist Brendan Murphy at his most demonic. That’s a feature of the record, the almost unrelenting relationship between the terrifying music and the unrelenting fear that Jim can instill.
Rarely has a song been more aptly named this year than ‘Skin Stripper’, which in just 90 seconds, packs in more punch and destructive energy than most manage in an entire career. Compared to ‘Pitiful’ though, it almost seems restrained, as in the album’s longest track, the band lurch from a doomy stomp to some classic hardcore bass swinging.
When ‘Cut Throat’, the track featuring Ethan Lee McCarthy from Primitive Man lurches its way to life like a partly rotting corpse from a peat bog, you start to wonder if this is actually a Gnaw Their Tongues track. Giving all of the feeling of a bad mushroom trip that refuses to end, the gurgling vocals may be too much for some, as it sounds similar to what you imagine living in Albert Fish’s head must have been like.
A moment that will live as a highlight of 2024 is the video for one of the album’s best tracks, ‘Serrated’. Featuring the band in a local social club performing to unaware punters (think the Lamb of God video Ruin by way of Phoenix Nights), Harry Nott from Burner pops up not only in the video but on the track too. Sounding like two people competing for the honour of who’ll get to bite your nose off first, Harry threatens to upstage Jim throughout, and the track shows two fantastic British metal bands at their most ferocious.
The album’s emotional, tormented highlight comes in the form of ‘Void’. Written by guitarist James Andrew Lee about the loss his mother, it has the potential to open up old and current wounds for the listener, or create new ones out of fear. The delivery of ‘I walk this path alone, How can I carry on, no queen upon the throne’ brings a lump to the throat in a way that this kind of music rarely does. When the pained howling of “We’re so close to the fucking end’ ends the track, you won’t know whether to break down and cry or punch a hole in the floor out of desperation, as it forces you to confront the reality of the inevitable future that you hope will never come. The theme of unresolved grief is one that recurs throughout, sure to strike a chord with many listeners.
At the end of this record, the grey tinge to your vision that the modern world rends upon you may be a little darker, but knowing that Mastiff are with you in this pit, this ever expanding chasm of hopelessness, may just make you feel more at home in the dirge. A phenomenal if suffocating listen that seeks to push the limits of auditory terror. You may manage it all in one listen, you may not, but what is guaranteed is that afterwards you’ll want to hold your loved ones that little bit tighter, to ease the dread that Mastiff have planted into your mind.