Album review: Paleface Swiss – Cursed

Ostensibly, Paleface Swiss are on the cutting edge of heavy music right now. Formed in 2017 but breaking out off the back of 2022’s second album Fear & Dagger – which coincided with the awkward addition of ‘Swiss’ to their name – the Zurich collective fell in behind ultra-heavy agenda setters Knocked Loose, Kublai Khan TX and Thy Art Is Murder and have managed to convert a groundswell of social media buzz into impressive breakout success. Which makes it all the more confounding that, for better and worse, third LP Cursed feels like such a throwback to simpler times.

Eerie intro Un Pobre Niño Murió (A Poor Boy Died) is promising. Its legitimately unnerving lo-fi lament only lasts a couple of minutes, though, before being shattered by the hammering Hatred, which feels like the sort of simplistic early-Slipknot worship that was inescapable circa 2003.

Next up, …and with hope you’ll be damned adds the weirdo angst and distended guitars of vintage Korn, succeeding through sheer brute force. But then the rote gutterals and straight-faced yelps of ‘Bitch!’ on hilariously one-dimensional dud Don’t You Ever Stop threaten to derail proceedings. And that’s before they crash headlong into the absurd, openly Limp Bizkit-indebted rap-metal of Enough.

Self-belief is a hell of a thing, however, and Paleface Swiss have enough chutzpah to keep listeners hanging on from a largely ill-advised first half into a much stronger second. Youth Decay blasts by in a colourful blur, quickly counterpointing a barrage of beatdowns with more swashbuckling six-strings. At 100 seconds, My Blood On Your Hands stretches its percussive concept right to breaking point.

Love Burns is easily the best song on offer, mixing elements of melodic death metal into more violently offbeat nu-metal riffage and spinning off into a chest-beating, lung-busting final third that’s pure power metal. By tearstained, unabashedly overwrought final track River Of Sorrows – a confounding marriage of melodrama and machismo – there’s little choice but to just go with it.

Whether Cursed has what it takes to continue the unlikely rise of Paleface Swiss will ultimately come down to the patience and open-mindedness of their fans. But come whatever may, they can hardly be accused of holding anything back.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Spite, Kublai Khan TX, Slipknot

Cursed is out now