Aural Aggravation

11th September 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Numbering a debut album ‘II’ might seem rather odd, but it’s by no means a first: Throbbing Gristle’s debut was The Second Annual Report, after their first two cassette-only releases were entitled The Best of Throbbing Gristle (Vol I and II respectively). However, with Everything Decays, it follows their first EP, Requiem 1: The Serial Killer’s Symphony of Liberation, Deliverance and Relief, and the album, written as a story, continues an ongoing narrative in which each song is a chapter. So far, so conceptual. When it comes to plot, there are certainly no spoilers in the nots which accompany the album, which they describe as ‘A descent into the darkest corners of the human mind, where oppression breeds trauma, trauma ignites rage, and rage demands retribution. The album follows the journey of those who have been stripped of their humanity, rising against their oppressors only to discover that revenge comes at the cost of their own souls. It is a story of pain, resistance, justice, and the thin line between liberation and becoming the very evil they swore to destroy.’

The Dutch deathcore / hardcore quartet threaten ‘crushing riffs, filthy grooves, savage vocals and bone-shattering breakdowns, dragging hardcore aggression into one hostile wall of sound. They describe their music as an overload of quick and loud noise.’

Opener, ‘Miserere mei, Deus’ arrives with an unexpectedly folksy ring and a thick but elastic bass sound which sounds almost synthy, and the whispered vocal is soft but menacing… and over the course of two and a half minutes it builds… and it builds. But then faceripping guitar chords and thunderous drums crash in and the vocals turn rabid, driving into a complex but hard-hitting slab of metalcore rage, which dovetails directly into lead single ‘Crowd Control’ where shit really goes off. We’ve all seen how police and governments implement crowd control – and, at times, somewhat selectively at that – and Everything Decays approach the topic with a suitably extreme suite of imagery, with tendrils, bones, peeled flesh and spilling guts in a frenetic, kinetic, and frankly devastating metal explosion. The final section is a slow trudge that draws as much on the pulverising weight of Swans and Godflesh as anything from the death / hardcore end of the spectrum, but dropping the BPM to that of ‘barely alive’ means that ‘Broken Vessels’, which powers in at a hundred miles an hour has even more impact. And this is something that does stand out about Requiem II: We Will Slaughter the Lambs – the pacing, the switches. Unravelling the narrative may not be an easy task, or one most listeners are even willing to undertake, but the way in which the individual songs move between one segment to the next, and how the songs, in turn, slot together to build the album as a whole… it’s clear there’s been a great deal of thought and technical application gone into this. It certainly isn’t just a bunch of songs cobbled together in a fortuitous sequence.

AA

It is, however, a crafted sequence of compositions planned and pieced together for maximum impact, and Requiem II: We Will Slaughter the Lambs is both relentless and brutal. The album’s centrepiece – and the longest of the seven tracks – ‘Adrenaline – A Lifetime Filled With Rage’ rips the doors off their hinges as it enters the set. A spindly, serpentine intro tinged with esoteric Eastern flavours swiftly melts into a wall of annihilate anguish which goes straight-up Nu-Metal a couple of minutes in, lumbering low and heavy.

‘Guillotine’ is a rush of snarling, gnarly fury, although the contrasting dual vocals, which pitch a clean delivery sits alongside all the swirling chaos. Hints of accessibility eddy on the peripheries, until finally, we arrive at the exit and ‘Rejoice the Butcher’ with an unexpected but well-timed glimpse at an approximation of pop, or at least melodic metal. Ordinarily, I’d say that a song like this breaks the mood but here, now, the prospect of escape, and time time just to breathe has appeal. Because Requiem II: We Will Slaughter the Lambs is nothing short of breathtaking. Soak it in, and enjoy, while you can.

AA

Pic: Dave van Hout