Once upon a time, Spread the Disease was a frenetic Canadian metalcore band playing a brand of skronk-heavy, screamo-adjacent murder music laced with electronic and black metal influences. Their 1998 debut, We Bleed From Many Wounds, is something of a classic among chaotic metalcore devotees, while 1999 follow-up The Sheer Force of Inertia is respectable in its own right. Yet life has a habit of getting in the way of intense musical pursuits, and after those two albums, the band called it quits. Years later, Spread the Disease has reunited and returned with an intimidating slab of aural annihilation: the ominously titled The Darkness. The Dread. The Suffering., which purports to expand upon the black metal elements of their earlier work. Can this cohort of Canucks recapture the caustic vitriol of their youthful output?
The Darkness. The Dread. The Suffering. is less of a maximalist, mathy affair than Spread the Disease’s previous work. Instead, the band opts for a more straightforward merger of second-wave black metal frostbite and 2000s metalcore beef, a combination that works largely because everybody involved seems determined to play it as angrily as humanly possible. Opener “Light Opaque” establishes a formula much of the album follows, its five-plus minutes alternating between meaty tremolo passages and classic At the Gates “0-7-5” riffing over syncopated chugs. “Gods and Politics” weaves blackened leads and tried-and-true blast sections into classic hardcore moves, including a tom-led pullback and satisfying d-beats, while lead single “Indoctrinated” unleashes a blistering array of icy riffcraft that recalls Anaal Nathrakh with the occasional punky power-chord section. For the most part, this is plenty effective. The songs carry an exciting sense of momentum, the individual parts are competent if somewhat expected, and each transition feels natural. I only wish the longer runtimes yielded more genuinely standout moments.
Spread the Disease does make some considerations for album flow, placing short interludes between the main tracks and slightly shifting its blackened hardcore milieu on the B-side. “Intermezzo I” is a brief harsh noise piece that breaks up the onslaught of the opening tracks, while “Intermezzo II” takes a more ambient approach, propelled by chime-like clean guitar. “Outro,” meanwhile, closes the album with a somber sound collage. The final two “main” tracks also put a different spin on the band’s established formula. “Summer Wanes” leans into a more Zao-like, rollicking metalcore assault accented by bursts of blackened tremolo, while the seven-minute “The Blight in Their Eyes” opens up into a sludgy second half, transforming what could have been a typical breakdown into an effective, atmospheric conclusion.
There are a lot of impressive elements to The Darkness. The Dread. The Suffering., but for me, the pieces never quite coalesce into something greater than the sum of their parts. Spread the Disease knows how to pack these songs with well-constructed, pissed-off riffs that blur the line between metalcore and black metal, but despite the variety on display, some ideas linger just a tad too long. Certain riffs feel like boilerplate black metal or cliché metalcore, and their juxtaposition doesn’t necessarily elevate them. With each main song passing the five-minute mark, the propulsive energy that fuels the record can occasionally dwindle, especially when a repetitive tremolo riff overstays its welcome. On a brief, 30-minute album with only five non-interlude tracks, these moments stand out more than they otherwise might. Despite this issue, the individual performances are consistently strong, and tracks like “Summer Wanes” and “Gods and Politics” demonstrate a well-considered take on this particular sound.
With The Darkness. The Dread. The Suffering., Spread the Disease has delivered an intriguing piece of blackened hardcore. There are plenty of fun ideas throughout the record, and it certainly isn’t lacking in aggression, but it’s missing a certain oomph and the considered songwriting needed to tie everything together. Fans of the band’s early material curious to hear its black metal tendencies dragged further into the foreground, should not be dissuaded, and it is undeniably cool to hear Spread the Disease sounding this venomous after so many years. Yet, beneath the frost, blasts, and nonstop riffing lies a record that strikes me as merely average. A nasty reunion, certainly. Just not quite a triumphant one.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Hypaethral Records
Websites: spreadthedisease.bandcamp.com | instagram.com/spreadthedisease_official
Releases Worldwide: July 10th, 2026
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