Review: Joshua Hobbins
Magandjin/Brisbane post-metal collective SLOWCUT return with flesh, a two-track, 19-minute plunge into visceral grief, existential violence, and the brutal beauty of embodiment.
Following the success of their 2023 debut In Death is Relief, flesh sees the quintet refining their voice, not through accessibility or polish, but through density, dissonance, and dread.
Opening track threaded creeps in with a hypnotic riff that feels ritualistic, like you’re being led, blindfolded, to some place sacred and dangerous. Its slow-burn structure feels more like a fever dream unfolding than a typical song arc. Jeremy Wittkopp’s vocals are submerged and shamanic, exhaling lines like “we are wedded whether wanted or not”, evoking a forced unity, be it between lovers, bodies, or nations. The band leans heavily into their love of doom, with riffs that feel stretched and swollen, but never directionless. The final movement of Threaded hits like a collapse, not just sonically but emotionally, leaving the listener dazed.
If threaded is an act of binding, martyred is the violent unravelling. Opening in a deceptively restrained manner, the track quickly descends into an ever-thickening wall of sound. Guitars twist and writhe, drums thunder, and Wittkopp’s vocals bleed over it all, equal parts lament and condemnation. Lyrically, martyred is politically charged and brutally descriptive, with imagery that confronts systemic violence head-on. “Her head like a dragonfruit of flesh”, and “we must bare witness, to the infant with a bullet wound through the head” confront the listener with real-world horror and trauma, particularly the violence inflicted on Palestinian children. These aren’t metaphors; they’re indictments. This isn’t performance; it’s invocation, and as the track progresses, the heaviness becomes spiritual, bordering on oppressive in the best possible way.
Musically, the band walks the line between Neurosis-level catharsis and the minimal, suffocating bleakness of bands like Khanate and Amenra. Guitarist Ben Gibson’s production is stark and unflinching, capturing the band’s raw dynamic range with clarity and power. There’s a live feel to the recording, and yet nothing feels unfinished or undercooked. Moments of clarity pierce the murk like light through smoke. Tim Goulding’s thunderous yet intricately timed drums, John Northwood’s brooding and deliberate basslines, and the dual guitar onslaught of Ben Gibson and Lee Clarke, equal parts searing and suffocating, carry the weight of both restraint and release.
What makes flesh so compelling is its refusal to compromise. There is no single, palatable message here. There is no comfort. Only confrontation, and an invitation to look deeper, into ourselves, into others, into history.
This isn’t a casual listen. It offers no comfort, only confrontation, by design.
This is post-metal with purpose. It’s brutal, honest, and necessary. flesh is a reckoning.
SLOWCUT – Flesh is out now
https://slowcutband.bandcamp.com/album/flesh
