Curse the Son Finish Work on Excruciation; Album out in June on Ripple Music
Hamden, Connecticut, tonal weightlifters Curse the Son aren’t kidding when they talk about branching out in terms of sound on their new album, Excruciation. Though the intervening years since 2016’s Isolator (review here) have seen them part ways with drummer Michael Petrucci, it’s clear that guitarist/vocalist Ron Vanacore and bassist/vocalist Brendan Keefe have solidified as a more dynamic team in terms of writing, with the latter picking up more duties in terms of joining creative vocal arrangements calling to mind Dirt-era Alice in Chains in call-and-response fashion, while Robert Ives, making his first appearance with the band, seems to immediately find his place holding the groove that has been at the core of the band since Vanacore founded it now some obscure number of years ago.
I haven’t heard the full record yet, I’m sad to say, but what I’ve had the chance to dig into finds Curse the Son a richer, more complex band who haven’t at all let go of the heft in their sound. Look out for “Worry Garden” and “Novembre.”
Vanacore was kind enough to give some comment on finishing work on the album below. It’s out in June on Ripple Music:
Ron Vanacore on Excruciation:
“The past few years have certainly been extremely difficult for our band. Between what appeared to be endless drummer changes, individual tragedies, and of course, Brendan‘s very serious motorcycle accident… We had been put to the test.
I am proud to say that we rose above all of that to create what is possibly our heaviest and certainly our most diverse and creative record to date.
The record is titled Excruciation and offers a glimpse into our lives (particularly Brendan’s) from November 2017-2018.
I wrote songs, Brendan wrote songs and we also collaborated on a few. Brendan sings lead on a song as well as playing some lead guitar!
Recording began at Dirt Floor studios in August 2019. We completed mixing in January 2020. We chose to really utilize everything the studio had to offer us as well as giving Eric Lichter a much larger role as producer. We really wanted to push the envelope and boundaries of the genre.
The record will be released in early June on Ripple Music. (Vinyl, CD, Digital) followed by as many shows as we can play!”
Curse the Son are:
Ron Vanacore – Guitars & Vocals
Brendan Keefe – Bass & Vocals
Robert Ives – Drums
https://www.facebook.com/cursetheson/
https://cursetheson.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
ripplemusic.bandcamp.com
http://www.ripple-music.com/
