Cursed

About Cursed

Cursed came out of Toronto in the early 2000s when hardcore was getting meaner and slower. They played the kind of music that made you feel like you'd been pushed down a flight of stairs, then asked to think about capitalism while you lay there at the bottom.

The band formed around 2001 with Chris Colohan on vocals, already known from his time in left-leaning hardcore acts like Ruination and Haymaker. The lineup solidified with members who'd done time in the city's punk and metal scenes, people who understood that heaviness wasn't just about volume. They took the brutality of metallic hardcore and slowed it down until every riff felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

Their first record, a self-titled album on Goodlife Recordings in 2003, established what they were about. This wasn't mosh music exactly, though people certainly threw themselves around to it. The songs lurched and crushed, Colohan's voice somewhere between a bark and a scream, lyrics dwelling on social decay and personal dissolution without any of the vague posturing that plagues heavy music.

By 2005's "Two" on Deathwish Inc., they'd refined their approach. The album moved between grinding sludge and explosive bursts of speed, never settling anywhere comfortable. Tracks like "Magic Fingers" and "Night Terrors" became reference points for what heavy hardcore could sound like when it stopped trying to prove anything. They toured relentlessly, sharing stages with everyone from Trap Them to Burning Love, building a reputation as a band that meant it.

Then came "III: Architects of Troubled Sleep" in 2008, probably their defining statement. The production was raw enough to feel immediate but clear enough to catch every hateful detail. The songs sprawled longer, giving the riffs room to really dig in. This was music for people who thought hardcore had gotten too cheerful, too nostalgic, too safe.

They called it quits in 2008, not long after that third album. No drama, no big announcement, just done. Colohan moved on to Burning Love and later The Players Club, continuing to make uncompromising music with different approaches. The rest of the members scattered to various projects, as happens.

What Cursed left behind was three albums that still sound vicious. They existed in that narrow window when hardcore bands were figuring out how to be heavy without just aping Slayer riffs, when the genre could still surprise you. Their records don't sound dated because they never chased trends. They just sounded angry and smart and completely uninterested in making friends.

The band's been gone longer than they were together at this point, but people still reference them when trying to describe particularly nasty hardcore. That's probably legacy enough.

Cursed shows are dense, suffocating affairs where the crowd tends toward quiet intensity rather than crowd interaction. People stand mostly still, locked in. The band doesn't engage between songs. Just relentless, punishing sets that feel more like endurance than entertainment.

Known for Confound Their Politics, Sadistical, I Abhor, Sanity Assassin, Taste the Ashes

See Cursed Live