Candy are a hardcore band from the US and this is their second album.
I do so enjoy music that’s violent and punishing, and Candy’s scathing mix of industrial, metal, and hardcore is exactly that. Across 30 minutes the band demonstrate that they’re very capable in all of these arenas.
This is a heavy, angry, nasty piece of work. The music is merciless and uncompromising, yet not without evidence of craftsmanship. This is an album of texture, despite its vicious veneer. Light and shade are used well to create warped space, while electronic and noise elements add further depths to explore. This is hardcore by way of industrial nightmare, noise experimentation, electronic interference, and harsh metallic thrash heaviness. That’s not to mention the powerviolence and grindcore elements that pepper the album like explosions in a ravaged landscape.
Heaven Is Here is a smörgåsbord of sonic brutality, grim atmospheric hopelessness, and harsh unrelenting anguish. Candy want to brutalise and terrorise physically and mentally, and with Heaven Is Here they have the tools to do so.
The first 20 minutes or so of the album combines all of the above ingredients of the band, while the final 10 minutes – the closing track Perverse – give full rein to the band’s experimental noise aspect.
Heaven Is Hell is an accomplished experimental hardcore album that knocks down a variety of stylistic doors in its quest for aggressive atmospheric brutality. If bands like Full of Hell, Heriot, Nails, Vein.fm, and Napalm Death float your boat, then you should definitely check out Candy.
Highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 