2023 has been a year of collaboration for Full of Hell. The band’s joint effort with Primitive Man, Suffocating Hallucination, a split EP with Gasp in August and now, to close the year off, When No Birds Sang. The record is a melding of minds with Philadelphia’s sullen, grungey shoegaze outfit Nothing. Full of Hell have long since forgone the confines of genre – they did not so much emerge from the primordial soup of extreme music as much as wallow in it, covered in the viscera of a new stylistic angle every time they surface. Having waded through grindcore, death and black metal, powerviolence and harsh noise, they now gaze into the abyss alongside Nothing.
Opening track ‘Rose Tinted World’ is a head on collision between the cataclysmic discordance Full of Hell are known for with the wall of sound Nothing aid in constructing. Featuring the typically inhuman vocals of Full of Hell’s Dylan Walker, a corrosive bass tone and inconceivably weighty guitars, the song immediately crushes the listener before receding into a cautious lull, then again building into unyielding feedback and noise. Subsequently, ‘Like Stars in the Firmament’ feels disconcertingly calm, drifting through the post-‘Rose Tinted World’ emptiness. The tone is post-apocalyptic, like the album is living on after the doomsday of the opener.
When No Birds Sang is a constant balancing act between the two bands at play. ‘Forever Well’ is a chasmal dirge driven by an echoing bass toll and demolishing percussion, dragging a heavenly shroud of sound kicking and screaming into the depths of hell. The track is an encapsulation of something the album does very well – mimicking the horror of staring blankly into a bottomless pit. Immediately following this is ‘Wild Blue’, a gleaming ambient piece that juxtaposes the bliss of silence with the terror of isolation; whilst occasionally gorgeous, ‘Wild Blue’ remain consistently ominous.
The ‘Wild Blue’ is something also referenced in the lyrics of the album’s titular track that immediately follows. Speaking of a “sky of empty space” with no birds to sing contextualises the sky as another void into which the two bands are staring – a looming barren expanse that constantly hangs above us. It takes the innately peaceful album cover and makes it a symbol of dread.
In the cascades and crescendos of ‘When No Birds Sang’ and ‘Spend the Grace’, Nothing and Full of Hell set foot into the territories of post-rock and blackgaze and find ways to feel both transcendent and condemned at the exact same time (with a heavy hand of doom smeared over the whole thing). Like stargazing into an empty sky, the two bands capture emotional devastation in the face of emptiness.
Full of Hell have released some of their best music when working collaboratively – a force of nature individually, their collaborative works often bring out sides of them not always so visible. When No Birds Sang is a shining example of this. Nothing bring their best to the table, forging an impenetrable wall of shimmering guitars and offering up spectral vocals, and Full of Hell hold up their end of the bargain with gnarled tone, demonic vocals and a tendency for noise. The result is testament to the fruits that can be harvested when two creative forces share a singular vision.
Full of Hell and Nothing: When No Birds Sang – Out 1st December 2023 (Closed Casket Activities)
of Hell and Nothing – Like Stars In The Firmament (Official Video) (youtube.com)
