Band:	Concrete Winds
Album:	Concrete Winds
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	August 2024
A review by:	X-Ray Rod

01. Permanent Dissonance
02. Virulent Glow
03. Daylight Amputations
04. Infernal Repeater
05. Subterranean Persuasion
06. Hell Trance
07. Systematic Distortion
08. Demented Gospels
09. Pounding Devotion

Don’t you love it when a band’s name fully matches their music? Concrete Winds have no qualms in crushing you with a fiery mix of death metal, black metal and grindcore.

There is something so gratifying when encountering uncompromisingly violent music. When your eyes widen and you whisper to yourself “Holy shit! What the hell is this?”. But when you listen to extreme metal on a regular basis, that feeling gets harder and harder to obtain. Enter Concrete Winds, your latest fix for your never-ending search for the most extreme and sickening listening experience. This duo was formed from the ashes of Vorum, which was a blackened death metal band that sadly only released 2 EPs and one full-length. Vorum disbanded in 2018, with Concrete Winds ready to take the torch in 2019. In these brief 5 years, Concrete Winds has been busy, with now three full lengths under their belt. A part of Vorum’s sound can be felt in Concrete Winds, as some of the evil riffs and wild solos are fairly similar; however, there’s an obvious difference in speed and urgency that makes Concrete Winds a completely different beast.

So far, all their albums have been sitting comfortably at the 25-minute mark, and it only takes a few seconds to understand why. Pummeling music like this is near impossible to sustain for longer than half an hour, but they make the most of the time that they have. With a self-titled album, Concrete Winds seem interested in demonstrating what they are all about. There is no brooding intro, no dark ambience bullshit in the beginning, not even a brief drumming sequence. The album starts immediately with blastbeats, an alarming riff and one hell of a spiteful vocal performance. The lightning-fast riffs are loud and clear thanks to excellent production and mixing; the same goes for the impeccable lead guitar sections, which are unrelenting in their ferocity and dissonance. I get the feeling Concrete Winds is very close to approaching war metal territory, but the thing that sets them apart from that style is not only the crispy production but also the emphasis on detailed songwriting. Amidst the chaos there are some interesting changes in pace, especially considering how fast these sections change and for how little time the band stays in the same lane.

There is also a pretty obvious noise/industrial element that covers the album like a cloak of static. One can usually hear this noisy layer as soon as the band stops playing or slows down the tempo; “Daylight Amptutations”, “Infernal Repeater”, “Subterranean Persuasion”, “Hell Trance” and “Pounding Devotion” are all examples where this noisy layer can be felt. And if you thought I named half the album tracklist because the song titles are amazing, you would be absolutely right. That being said, I do want to highlight “Subterranean Persuasion” and “Hell Trance”, because both of them carry an infectious groove and industrial oomph that really adds to the frenetic, militant feeling of the record. This really showcases that Concrete Winds are far from being a one-trick pony and do, in fact, demand more than a couple of listens in order to dig through these layers.

Concrete Winds is an apt name for this band and album. It’s a slab of concrete right to your face. But for a brief moment, the brick is right in front of your eyes and just barely touching your skin. That’s when you can feel its porous surface and distinguish every bump, every crack and really see the detailed structure of it.