GELD – currency // castration – BRAND NEW CASSETTE TAPE

“If you’ve ever wondered what Catharsis covering The 13th Floor Elevators might sound like, wonder no longer—and that’s only the start!” – Decibel Magazine
GELD make their Relapse Records debut with their third full length, Currency // Castration! The Australian band distills a despairingly hellish vision of the world into a thundering crack to the temple through an unsparing fusion of hardcore’s bleakest violence with metal’s ruthless strength-through-conviction. GELD’s abrasive take on the genre is distorted through a lense of fuzzed out psych soundscapes; vocals truly sound like unhinged barks, while guitars, bass, and drums crash against one another frenetically, each track burning brighter and brighter.
Every moment of Currency // Castration is urgent. Tracks such as “Chained to a Gate” edge and scratch at a relief that is ultimately denied, toying with the nightmarish promise of a breakdown that never comes. Elsewhere, “Cut You Down” pulses with frantically itching riffs that stream forth. “Fog of War” snaps and snarls; while “Secret Prison” evinces the honed physique of Japanese hardcore fed through the broken brain of someone on a years-long Rrröööaaarrr-era Voivod spin-out.
Despite the band’s innovative approach to the genre, GELD makes no pretensions at being “interesting” for interesting’s sake – As vocalist Al Smith puts it, “One of the most boring things people can do is try to dress up what someone else has already contributed to a genre and make it ‘clever’… We’re more interested in finding our own position.”  With Currency // Castration, GELD offers no promise of a higher purpose or resolve. Rather, they lean into dissociation, finding truth and meaning in the transcendental joy of simply escaping, surviving, existing.
Release date: June 9, 2023