Succuba
No Arms / No Cake
Handmade Records

Succuba is a four-headed rock animal from the small city of Horten, one hour's drive south west of Oslo. With No Arms / No Cake they kick hard with a monstrous mixture of noisy hard-rock and punch-drunk, raw grunge-punk, with metal edges and synth/sax seasoning. Self-recorded, but with production assistance by Toshi Kasai (a member of Big Business, and formerly working with the Melvins, Sepultura and others). Succuba aim for tearing down your house.

The 8 song No Arms / No Cake is quite a brutal treat, better to be taken in smaller portions. Opener "Klaus" (Kinski, by any chance?) shows a playful band, going genre surfing, with synth'n'sax parts as topping to hard soundscapes. This is a band taking no prisoners, and they're most definitely up for serious, kick-ass head banging, if not a moshpit mayhem. They do have some though riffs, they play loud and tight, but yet I miss some bull's eye song writing. I also find the vocals a bit too monotonous. But, of course, everything's quite fitting within their brutal expression. "Tubby Troglodyke", and the even more primal (and catchy) "Argh", are some of the better songs, with sort of a Ministry madness. Or Melvins on amphetamine.

In fact, Melvins' Dale Crover, as well as the most credible producer Jack Endino, has said to be interested in working with Succuba in the future. Maybe there'll be some cake after all.

Copyright © 2009 Håvard Oppøyen