Cult of Occult - Five Degrees Of Insanity

(Words by Doomfinder General)

It's a word that gets thrown around a lot these days but fuck, Cult Of Occult are heavy. From the crushing guitar to the viscous vocals and the pounding drums it's almost too much at times but it never stops being amazing albeit in a thoroughly unpleasant way.

Five Degrees Of Insanity (as can you see from the album cover) is about a man slowly losing his mind - which is a pretty good description of the music. The album starts off with a slow feedback build up for about a minute - lulling you into a false sense of security - then kicks in and you are almost instantly drowning in a river of pain, anguish and misery that pretty music doesn't let up for 70 minutes. "Misanthropic" offers a brief respite from the constant misery with an almost black metal-like intro and a slow, psych-outro, but still has a solid 10 minutes of good old horrible sludgy misery.

If you are in any into sludge or generally unpleasant music this is well worth a listen.