Taking Black, Death, and Sludge Metal, mixing them all in a stew, and pouring it out hoping that it doesn’t taste of shit, is a process that a fair few bands have attempted over the years. Most of the time it’s the musical equivalent of throwing leftovers, kitchen scraps, and a couple of old batteries into a blender and praying you don’t poison yourself. It’s that “throw it at the wall and hope something sticks” approach that usually results in an unlistenable dirge — a confused Frankenstein of a record that lurches around, unsure if it wants to rip your throat out or just fall over and expire.
In fact, it’s the kind of thing that would make Frankenstein’s creature look even worse if Stevie Wonder had slapped it together using a staple gun and nursery-school glue sticks.
It is a risky business that normally fails miserably.
Normally.
But Cancerbloom by HVRT isn’t normal. Not remotely. And thank fuck for that.
Here’s the thing: HVRT aren’t mashing genres together like toddlers finger-painting until the entire palette turns into shit-stain brown. Instead, what they deliver is a deliberate, venomous, and shockingly cohesive hybrid that knows exactly when to lean into Sludge’s swampy heft, when to churn out Death Metal’s suffocating brutality, and when to unleash the frostbitten ferocity of Black Metal.
This isn’t a mishmash. This is a weapon.
From the opening moments of The Wait, The Weep, The Woe, this album situates itself in that rare territory where tone, intent, and execution all strike the same nerve at the same time. The guitars don’t just “chug” — they lurch, heaving forward like some diseased colossus dragging its carcass across a field of bones. The tone is dense, ugly, oppressive, and absolutely glorious. You can almost taste the rot that is clogging up the strings.
Sludge is the backbone here — thick, viscous riffs that pull everything downward into the mire. But unlike many sludge bands who mistake repetition for heaviness, HVRT actually write with purpose. The riffs shift shape, mutate, rise and collapse in waves. There’s movement. There’s weight. There’s violence simmering under every note.
Then the Death Metal elements crash in — not in a way that feels bolted on, but in a way that makes total sense within the world HVRT have built. The drumming turns savage, the tempo spikes into murderous gear, and the vocals erupt from the throat like bile from an open wound. These moments hit hard precisely because they’re not constant. HVRT know how to use these contrasts, and it pays off every time.
And then there’s the Black Metal.
Not “pretty atmospheric” Black Metal.
Not “post-this” or “blackened-that.”
No.
When the frost hits on Cancerbloom, it’s the real fucking thing — cold, savage, sharp enough to flay you. Tremolo lines spiral out like freezing winds. The drums take on a more ritualistic and insane cadence. The entire tone shifts into something spectral, occult, and hostile to human life.
What makes it all work — what prevents this album from collapsing under its own ambition — is HVRT’s sense of control. There’s intention behind every movement. Every shift in tone, tempo, and influence feels like a structural decision, not an accident. This isn’t three genres clattering around in a tumble dryer. This is three genres being commanded, shaped, and bound into something coherent.
The vocals deserve their own praise. They aren’t pretty. They aren’t polished. They’re raw, savage, acidic — the kind of voice that sounds like it’s screaming through an eternity in Hell’s deepest bowels. There’s a deranged theatricality to the delivery, but never in a way that overshadows the music. Instead, the vocals function like a jagged spear stabbing through the murk, dragging the listener deeper into HVRT’s caustic world.
Everything is audible — the bass snarls, the drums crack and rumble, the guitars maul and suffocate — but nothing loses its grime. Cancerbloom sounds organic, lived-in, diseased. Like something recorded in a rat-infested basement but mixed by someone who actually knows how sound works.
Lyrically and thematically, the album reeks of decay, transformation, psychic rot, and a world intent on killing itself — all the fun stuff. HVRT aren’t writing pretty poetry; they’re writing manifestations of sickness, emotional and physical, metaphoric and literal. There’s imagery here that sticks under the skin like splinters.
By the end of the record, you aren’t left confused.
You’re left infected.
You’re left impressed.
You’re left wondering how the hell HVRT pulled off a hybrid like this without stumbling into incoherence.
Because Cancerbloom isn’t a genre experiment — it’s a fully realised entity, a beast stitched together with intelligence instead of hope, white-hot rage instead of guesswork.
Cancerbloom by HVRT will be released December 5th via their Bandcamp page.
CHOICE CUT: Lives Unlived
BLACK METAL ARCHIVES VERDICT: A feral collision of Sludge filth, Death Metal savagery, and Black Metal frost — executed with precision, clarity, and sheer fucking malice. HVRT didn’t blend genres; they conquered them.
