Golden Rusk
What Will Become of Us?
(Self-Release)
A one-man industrial death metal onslaught, Italy’s Golden Rusk both soars and stiffens with its debut record What Will Become of Us?. The band flies epically in its direction and technical innuendo, opting for strength in lack of numbers; and for this, the new record feels pure, naturally robotic (a good thing), and grim, in only a way that a solo project can. It also falters for this very reason though, playing a form that mostly soars because of its inclusion of individual identities.
The bass work and drum patterns are mechanized in an honest, pure, and industrial way, executed with bravery throughout most of the record. Interestingly, when this rigid framework does falter, it’s in songs that gravitate as a totality towards said industrial form, like “Show Me Your Hate”: it’s sort of an unfortunate irony. When concentrating on groove and thrash though, this architecture is fun and exciting. “Life No More” happens artfully, with atmosphere, concentration, and ascension.
Key to Golden Rusk is the use of creative resonance. Solo projects are mirrors of specific souls, hard to capture, and of times strangely edited. But it is this process that makes for something duality cannot possible capture. The human brain is split infinitely, but when conjoined and opposed there is a double infinity. It is in the former unsolicited mind, where something such as the end of “Life No More”, with its beautiful and odd classical guitar work, can succeed, piercing directly into the subconscious.
There’s a lot of cool stuff going on in What Will Become of Us?, a lot of stretches of sincerity and ideas that are dimensional and bold. The man behind Golden Rusk, Maher, shows perseverance and a knack of division that works well throughout his debut. There’s a few areas of concern though, namely, the pace. The album’s best ideas are jammed pack in bunches and spasms, and sometimes leaves the rest of the album showing burnout and retrograde. All in all though, the album’s a nifty dark fantasy, and I’m looking forward to the next one.
Purchase What Will Become of Us? here.
