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Paleface Swiss – CURSED Review
Image Credit: Blood Blast Distribution
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Well, it has been quite a while since I provided the most recent music review to the aptly named music section. But, for many reasons it has been that way, namely because I had taken on more wrestling recap and review duties, combined with a less than exceptional month of December for music and, of course, writers block. However, that stands to not be the case right now, and as the calendar has turned from 2024 to 2025, there will be a treasure chest of albums that I will be digging in to, so stick around for ALL of that!
The first official review of the 2025 music season is for an up-and-coming band from Switzerland, who is trying to bring some of the more extreme styles of music into the mainstream. For more on this, feel free to read on!
Paleface Swiss – CURSED
Release Date – January 3, 2025
Genres – Deathcore/Nu-Metal/Nu-Metalcore
Band Line-up:
Marc “Zelli” Zellweger – Vocals
Yannick Lehmann – Guitars
Tommy Lee – Bass (No, not THAT Tommy Lee)
Cassiano “Cassi” Toma – Drums
Track Listing:
1. “un pobre nino murio” (1:44)
2. “Hated” (3:03)
3. “…And With Hope You’ll be Damned” (3:29)
4. “Don’t You Ever Stop” (3:19)
5. “Enough?” (3:27)
6. “Youth Decay” (3:34)
7. “My Blood On Your Hands” (1:40)
8. “Love Burns” (4:15)
9. River of Sorrows (4:02)
Usually, when you think of Switzerland, you think of snowy slopes, the Super Hadron Collider, Ricola cough drops, bugles with that distinct sound of the mountains, and the Swiss Superman himself, Claudio Castagnoli. One of the things at the top of this list wouldn’t be Deathcore, but with the emergence of Paleface Swiss onto the music scene, that perception is set to change, for better or for worse.
Up until the year 2023, the band was simply known as Paleface, but they added the Swiss to the name due to their being another artist with the Paleface name (to my surprise, he’s been active in music since 1989, but I never heard of him). With the name change, the music also changed to add some more influences, as they were strictly a Deathcore band before. In the year 2024, members of the band were featured across several other musician’s singles, from the likes of Left To Suffer, Fallbrawl, Pitglass, Get the Shot, and Nathan James.
And so that brings us to CURSED, the band’s third LP and first under the added name to their profile. A couple of singles were released late between November and December to build up hype for the new album, and it must have worked well, because Livewire put it on their list of “Most Anticipated Rock + Metal albums of 2025”. But, as a wise person once told me and I have continued to use this expression, “Perception is Reality,” and no matter how loud and bombastic you pretend to be, it doesn’t mean that the product delivers enough substance to be memorable.
One of the more obvious comparisons to their sound, at least to me, was a prime Slipknot. To that end, Zellweger gives a convincing Corey Taylor impression, while the band behind him provides a tectonic wall of sound that engulfs anything that dares to get close to it. “Hatred,” “And With Hope You’ll be Damned,” and “Youth Decay” are Slipknot worship, to various degrees of insanity. Speaking of insanity, “Enough” is the oddest track on the album that is not an interlude, and while I appreciate Zellweger reading (or rather, weirdly rapping) the riot act to those who spew homophobia on social media, it’s to flimsy for its own good.
Despite all the same sounding tropes that the band can fall into, there are some outliers. The previously mentioned “Enough” is commendable for its lyrics, but changes gears so much it’s like being propelled out of a moving car and doing a barrel roll down the road. “Un Pobre Nino Murio” (which is Spanish for “A Poor Boy Died”) has a chilling vibe to it that someone would be crazy to not use it for a horror film trailer. Closing numbers “Love Burns” and “Rivers of Sorrow” show off a more mature side of the band, as the outro to the former is haunting and beautiful, while the latter throws a curveball in the form of an alt rock/radio rock number.
While the instrumentals sound like jackhammers raging out of control down the sidewalk looking to cause chaos, there are outstanding moments for most of the members. Toma, who joined the band right after they added the Swiss to their name, brings a lot of raw power and form to the rhythm section. Lehmann doesn’t get to stand out in the first half of the album, but in “Youth Decay” he unleashes one tasty guitar solo, on “Love Burns”, he is a big factor to the amazing ending of the song, and on “Rivers of Sorrow”, he slows it down enough to show he can add some more time parsing riffs and licks. Zellweger, for his part, has a vocal range that few others in these genres have. He does a fair Taylor impression most of the time, has spoken parts and the rap part of “Enough,” and even gives a Chris Barnes approved pig stuck under a gate squeal on “Don’t You Ever Stop.”
For all the sounds on this album, whether good, bad, or indifferent, the one thing that I can commend the band for is not indulging just to indulge their egos. The album is a mere nine track run list (eight, if you leave the intro as a standalone) that clocks in at only 28:33, meaning that you will have to re-listen many times to catch the things that you missed the first time. Whether that is a good thing or not is for you to decide, but I don’t think the replay value of this is as good as some other bands in these genres.
Recommended Tracks: “Youth Decay,” “Love Burns,” and “River of Sorrows.”
