The Scream Blast Repeat winners of the 2022 Album of the Year are back and as angry as ever. You’re in for a treat if you don’t know the fervour of their French vocalist, Rachel Aspe. Their self-titled effort stormed through the meanest body-slamming riffs since the emergence of seven-string guitars in the 1990s. Now, Tesseract axeman, James Monteith, is ready to burnish his extreme metal credentials, and it’s time to strap in like it’s Strapping Young Lad.
Claustrophobic screams of “I can’t breathe” repeat over drum ‘n’ bass beats and a melody that sounds closer to the Islamic call to prayer than anything in contemporary music for the intro piece, ‘Confined’. There’s no need to worry as soon as ‘Oxygen’ gets into gear with rapid finger movements and a crushing drum attack. Rachel Aspe is in full death metal mode here as James Monteith and drummer, Nick Plews, play off each other like rival assassins hunting the same target. There’s a void in your life if you’re not ripping through the air guitar while you swing your head like Cliff Burton.
‘Pig’ is just as essential to the disillusioned metaller who feels jaded by extreme music. This is how you mix groove with the pizzazz of thrash and the aggression of blackened-death metal. The gang vocals and Prong-style riffing are as sharp as the grim reaper’s blade. Listen to how Rachel Aspe lowers her register for the chorus, dropping into a baritone range that would make any metalcore male vocalist blush. You might be wondering if there’s a place to breathe. There isn’t. Chief pig-squealer, Julien Truchan of Benighted, joins the band for ‘Pick Your Fighter’, yet they refuse to disappear into an unlistenable bombardment of notes and blast beats. If anything, this is the most hardcore song on the record.
Like any good LP, Exuvia also has a genuine single with crossover potential. ‘Un Bon Souvenir’ could be from the last Enforced album until Rachel Aspe finds her inner Belinda Carlisle in the chorus. Make no mistake: ninety percent of her output in this song is as hostile as the second wave of black metal in the early 1990s, which makes the melody even more effective. The band follow it with one of the few obvious moments of homage in ‘Deathstalker’, where the similarities with Fear Factory’s ‘Body Hammer’ become apparent. Yet even this finds its own metallic hardcore identity thanks to the changing tempo of the drums and the spoken word bridge to the chorus.
Could the listener lose their stamina for something so aggressive and eyebrow-singeing? No. Cage Fight can rely on their singer to explore her evolving harmony range in the few interludes on the album that help the transitions land like a blow to the head. The title track is perhaps the only time when you wonder if you’ve heard it before on Side A. Here, the double-timing snares and double-bass pedal alternate with half-timing movements as Rachel Aspe lapses between introspection and circling the boxing ring. And you weren’t expecting ‘The Hammer Crush’ to be a pop song, were you? The breakdown riffs are crunchier than the eggshells that Prince Harry will be stepping on when he returns to England with his tail between his legs.
Cage Fight is a passion project for its guitarist and a life-changing platform for its singer. This combination is apparent in ‘IHYG (I Hate Your Guts)’, yet Nick Plews steals the show with his determination to insert ‘Bleed’ by Meshuggah into his rhythmic footwork. Again, this is not a homage: this is hardcore with the technicality of metal as its breathing mechanism. Many of us will be praying for a Jinjer/Cage Fight tour in 2027.
Kirk Houghton
Verdict
Release Date: 01/05/2026
Record Label: Spinefarm Music Group
Standout tracks: Oxygen; Un Bon Souvenir; The Hammer Crush
Suggested Further Listening: Detraktor – Full Body Stomp (2022), Extinction A.D. – Culture of Violence (2022), Candy – It’s Inside You (2024)