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Mental Cruelty

Combining the crushing, at times dissonant onslaught of blackened deathcore with the grandiosity of orchestral and even choral arrangements, German group Mental Cruelty stand apart from other depths-churning metal acts. After building a buzz within the scene on the independent releases Purgatorium (2016) and Infernis (2019), the band endured a near-total personnel overhaul in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, bouncing back with the ambitious Zweilicht in 2023.Singer Lucca Schmerler had been performing under the name Mental Cruelty since 2014, but the band considers 2016 the year their current form took hold, launching from Karlsruhe, Germany with Schmerler, guitarists Marvin Kessler and Dennis Paßmann, bassist Viktor Dick and drummer Kevin Popescu. Debut EP Pereat Mundus was a purely deathcore affair, offering heavy riffs wound around heartstopping kick drums and Schmerler's hellish, guttural vocals. Full-length debut Purgatorium delivered the same sonic ideas on a loose, conceptual platter, but 2019’s Infernis was a turning point, adding occasionally ethereal arrangements for chorus and orchestra as a stunning melodic offset to the metal mayhem that came from the band.Mental Cruelty made their first big personnel shake-ups while they (and other bands) were sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic: guitarist Paßmann and drummer Popescu were out, replaced by Nahuel Lozano and Danny Straßer, respectively. This revitalized quintet further pursued the death/symphonic metal pathway on 2021’s A Hill to Die Upon, which earned them even more attention in the metal community and a record deal with Century Media in 2022. But another challenge rocked the band just weeks after the signing, when the band parted ways with Schmerler after a wave of accusations of sexual abuse. With new vocalist Lukas Nicolai, the group recorded and released Zweilicht (2023), an effort that dialed up the intensity of their aggression and melodicism on record; key tracks “Mortal Shells” and “Symphony of a Dying Star” were even re-recorded as bonus tracks with the former featuring solely orchestral backing and the latter stripped down to piano and synthesizer arrangement.
© Mike Duquette /TiVo

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Discography

14 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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