Black metal’s ongoing expansion has been a consistent source of fascination for underground mavens, but there will always be room for bands who eschew elaborate artistic conceits in favour of ripping our faces off and using them as hats.
By calling themselves Black Fucking Cancer, these Californians have drawn a deep line in the sand. This is filthy, violent BM infused with the hateful intensity of the sickest slow-motion sludge and delivered with levels of conviction that few likeminded bands have mustered in recent times.
At 12 minutes in length, a song like Acid Ocean takes grim, necrotised extremity as its starting point, but the whole thing morphs incrementally into something far more disorientating and horrifying. At times, it feels like BFC are contemplating ditching traditional structures in favour of a sustained barrage of mutant noise, but there are always serrated-edge riffs lurking in the shadows, waiting to stab stargazers out of their reverie. This is like early Marduk on magic mushrooms, but somehow even better than that sounds.
