Fortunately, the intrigue for our Australian metallic-hardcore-heads goes well beyond their namesake as they seek to evolve from the gnarled and jagged beginnings of 2021’s EP Cast You Out into one brutalist amalgamation of the most abhorrent corners of hardcore, death metal, black metal and metalcore whilst keeping their eyes on the road that they paved themselves just one year ago. This concoction is The Bones That Grew From Pain. Forged in an apathetic and unjust world, the record throws down its riffs and chews with a set of teeth just as sharp as the one that spat it out. It’s cruel, angry and simply does not care about you.
The best hardcore record experiences can often be likened to a bit of a beating and the best of the lot know well that, to keep an opponent on their feet, you have to conjure untold ways of knocking them off them. This is a brutal art form and Nicolas Cage Fighter’s bloody canvas is smattered with expertise. The Bones… fronts an intimidating agenda as we’re knuckle-dragged through its 10 tracks – the aforementioned canvas is more a torrid deluge of traditional hardcore psychosis that frenetically jumps to the gutters of death metal and frozen peaks of black metal; oftentimes in the same three-minute snapshot.
“The 2021 effort was by no means docile but something about this by comparison feels totally unhinged”
Whilst this ambition could prove an identity crisis for those unprepared, Nicolas Cage Fighter proves this stylistic chameleon-ism is well within their trick-inundated sleeves. Vocalist Nicholas Moriarty makes for a fantastic case study. ‘Shrine Of Wire’ is a wild flurry of vocal capacity, Moriarty proving just as formidable in his hardcore foundations as he is in his limitless other guises which stretch across demonic pig grunts and even some frantic, yet rhythmic, snarls like a zombified early-era Corey Taylor. It’s not that the frontman is doing the heavy-lifting in this smorgasbord of savagery – Nicolas Cage Fighter continues to be a well-wound unit hardwired on making your ears bleed – but his performances are certainly due true recognition and gives the album a true face to fear.
But how far does this take our raging Cages? After all, there are only so many times a genre can dish out the ‘maladjusted outcast giving the world a middle finger’ narrative before someone slaps him with a social behaviour order and fans start yawning. Fortunately, the band delivers on their sights to evolve from their Cast You Out EP in both style and substance. The 2021 effort was by no means docile but something about Bones…by comparison feels totally unhinged. The performances are yet more malicious, the production is cleaner with a defined crunch and boundaries remain pushed – like the closing moments of ‘Heretic’s Vow’ that venture into pure melodic black metal – without any loss of their signature ability to deliver black eyes like the world’s worst postman.
If there are complaints to be had then perhaps the boundaries they were pushing could have been leant on further. Tracks like ‘Foundation’, for instance, avoid being the average meat-head anthem but don’t possess enough individual spark to fight amongst heavy-hitters like ‘Weeping Sores’ and the colossal title track. So perhaps there’s still room for the band to get their creative elbows out further without diluting the broth it’s more likely that Nicolas Cage Fighter is cautiously dipping their toes to check the waters aren’t too hot for their debut.
If you have a penchant for flailing yourself around like a limp noodle to sounds as scorching and as vicious as the waters that boiled said noodle then Nicolas Cage Fighter have one of the most unforgiving yet instrumentally curious pits of hell to hurl yourself into. Whether you come out alive is an entirely different matter but one thing is for certain, you will have had the time of your life, even in death.