Kulk hand us some pre-autumnal dread on Choosing To Die, a sludge-based reckoning with everything we constantly battle against.
Release date: August 28, 2026 | Church Road Records | Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp
If there’s one genre that really represents the times, for me it’s sludge. This is a permutation of metal that is close to doom’s side and has always been maligned with the worst the world has to offer, even if only on a personal level. Between thick, viscous guitar runs and plodding, explosive drumming, maybe some flecks of speed and further tumult here and there, it revels in the mundane, pain, and despair. Kowloon Walled City, Black Sheep Wall, (early) Mastodon – I’m not an expert, but I like a lot of it.
Kulk from the UK seem intent on adding themselves to the roster of go-tos for me as their brand of doomy sludge metal is particularly hopeless and picking up the instrumental slack that I’ve found a little lacking in others lately. It’s not a perfect comparison or analogy, but some of it reminds me of some Godflesh material and how that particular brand of industrial music just repetitiously pounds at you with the same dark melodies and caustic vocals. It’s a hard sell because it’s not fun, sunny music, but that’s precisely why I like it so much – there’s just not much to smile about these days.
So Choosing To Die comes at a great time. For a lean 26 minutes, we’re subjected to a type of virulent nihilism that I can’t help but feel attracted to in this context. Kulk are defeated, splayed apart for the elements to desecrate. And yet their music is the strongest proof of life you could muster. These two people make some of the most resonating clamor I’ve heard in a while. “Collapse” is aptly named because despite its alluring sense of tone and melody, it’s heavy as hell. Just a prime ass-kicker and -puncher of a track, dragging you by the collar up the street and into a ditch, each feedback pitch replicating the ringing of your ears from being bashed silly.
“The Saddest Holiday” expresses the weight of loss with one of the meanest riffs on the album. While lead singer and guitarist Thom makes punctuated yells to coincide with the instrumentation, I assume it’s drummer Jade bringing up the rear with the most gentle yet harrowing moment of Choosing To Die, making the track sound like an early atmospheric Nine Inch Nails cut with clean singing and an eerie sense of calm. I also like the violins at the end of “Ache” which are treacherous, like a bad omen. The only thing you hear after that in the final track, “Our Last Walk”, is the approach of rushing water as if you’re about to go over the edge of a waterfall. Then a sharp cut to deafening silence.
Although I gravitate toward the crunchiness of “Being Forgotten” or how “An Endless Knife” kicks your nose bone into your brain with busy percussion, I really have to hand it to Kulk for being as varied as they were on here. It’s a little tough to add accoutrements to your sludge metal without tarnishing the mood or theme. This did no such thing, instead adding to the experience of dread that the duo capture as a point of honesty. To me, it’s the same reason why Black Sheep Wall‘s best album is called I’m Going to Kill Myself and the cover is two Muppet-like creatures with joy dappled on their faces – it’s not just to be edgy, it’s to capture the diversity of thought and feeling behind the all-consuming pessimism. Not to show literal intent necessarily, but to represent the mental collapse brought on by the world.
To that end, Choosing To Die is a statement, and its music rife with the tools of grief used to wound and blister. Its power is in how Kulk chose to express insurmountable pain and torment, sanding down the raw emotion into something coherent which is hard to pull off. Even its lyricless moments are testaments to the feelings surrounding the album and what the band stand for. Riveting, downcast, and, most of all, memorable. This is why I love sludge and why it’ll always hit when it’s done by people who care about it.
