Kulk are a synth-doom two piece, hailing from Norfolk. Jade Squires brings the noise into the 20’s with electronic movement with her drums and synthesizer. Thom Longdin is the voice and the guitar that brings the band together. A distorted harmony of noise, Kulk are a band worth checking out.
We Spare Nothing is an album created from a mix of emotions. A defined path is laid out through the music. The first track, ‘Shuck’ is a new take on one of metal’s favourite icons Black Shuck, the dog of impending doom and death. It’s good to hear his name again as Kulk create a powerful build up that rings through the rest of the album as it gets down and dirty with politics, degradation, and flirts with the morality on some difficult topics.
The third track on the album, ‘Goblin Dreams’. Takes a disconcerting look at mental health and how the medicine we take might have seriously weird side effects.
“Sertraline gives me goblin dreams
Makes me feel in-between
Ugh”
Kulk, We Spare Nothing: Goblin Dreams
‘Day Old Kebab’ has got to be one of the highlights of the album. Three minutes of pure noise. The day-old kebab is a tory kebab. Which just turns the whole song on its head and brings a serious chill to the gnarled sound coming from the duo. Kebabs are fast becoming a symbol of the people in UK music. Maybe it’s because we all realised how much we missed them when people were barricaded from the pubs during lockdown. Even if the kebabys were open – who in their right mind drives to a kebab shop for their favourite Shish during a global pandemic? Probably a genius, that’s who. But that’s the problem. We were depressed. We were drunk and couldn’t get in the car. Somehow. we took it for granted that they wouldn’t be open anyway. We never forgot our kebab pals.
“Tory Kebab
Kebab
Kebab”
Kulk, We Spare Nothing: Day Old Kebab
Lockdown had a wrecking impact on kebab places across the country. The feelings of pure devastation that came post-lockdown when we saw those boarded up windows of the kebab shops that didn’t make it through the austerity was poignant. Of course, we all know that it was likely due to the handling of the situation by those in power that made it happen. That is what makes ‘Day Old Kebab’ a true protest song.
Other tracks on the album like ‘Forgetting is Your Blessing’ and ‘Lives for One’, are concerned with morality and the way we are acting as a society. How we are suffering, but we don’t even realise that our suffering is being caused by anything external anymore. We blame ourselves. We blame those closest to us. Then we sleep-walk past the perpetrators of the whole situation.
Kulk are like Deerhoof in the early days, with some of the power of Amebix thrown in for good measure. Arty, loud and full of ideas. They are saving the future one lyric at a time by focusing on the problems we have in our society today. A death metal doom band, with a crispy punk political edge.
We Spare Nothing is out on 29th October and available to pre-order via Hominid Sounds.
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Review By Jess Milner: WordPress / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
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