Converse Rubber Tracks x MetalSucks Preview, Week 2: Fulgora
This coming July, five unsigned bands will visit Converse Rubber Tracks in Brooklyn, NY to record at Converse’s completely free, state-of-the-art recording studio with producer Will Putney. MetalSucks held an open application process in April for bands to apply, then Axl, Vince and Will sifted through all of the entries to choose their five favorite bands. In the weeks leading up to these recording sessions, we’ll be previewing one band every Monday, so you can get a taste of what’s in store for ya! Today, we feature Fulgora, with a split membership from St. Louis and Baltimore.
If you’re a regular reader of MetalSucks, you’re probably already familiar with Maryland’s Fulgora, whose praises we’ve been singing for the better part of two years now. But if you’re not into Fulgora yet, well… hold on to your underwear.
Of all the bands selected for this year’s CRTxMetalSucks, Fulgora have the most impressive pedigree: cousins Adam (drums) and John (bass) Jarvis also play in Pig Destroyer together, while Adam is also also a member of Misery Index. (These dudes are so fucking metal that one band simply cannot contain them. It would be too much heaviness for even the heaviest of heavies to bear.) And although it might be easy to dismiss Fulgora as just another deathgrind band from guys who specialize in deathgrind bands, it is very much its own project with its own distinct personality: if Misery Index is a determined fanatic seething with the righteous rage of political revolution and Pig Destroyer is the lovelorn, desperate stalker of every woman’s nightmares, then Fulgora is a mad scientist who is going to make you the middle section of his human centipede. Fulgora’s music is unforgiving and furious, but it’s also executed with surgical precision.
Surely, a significant amount of the credit for that lies with guitarist/vocalist B.L. LaMew, the band’s least well-known member. His razor sharp guitar playing is as clear as the haunting memory of your greatest traumas and most vivid pains. At times it feels like he must have six fingers or something. In a genre full of guys whose method of attack is akin to just throwing a shit ton of grenades at you, LaMew stands out as a dude who would much rather use speed, an encyclopedic knowledge of the human anatomy’s most vulnerable spots, and a pair of sharp cleavers to do his dirty work.
Check out last year’s two-song EP below:
