‘Hollow hysteria, Unfair at heart, No meaning, Lies and slander, acting like, A mass consumption’ (Them And Us)

Hailing from Belgium, Plague Thirteen are purveyors of d-beat fuelled melodic crust, building on the legacy of their predecessor incarnation Link.  Eroded is the band’s third full-length, following on from 2023’s Healing Ground.   What first strikes is the sheer rawness of their delivery, one that teeters on the blown out.  Yet even amid this almost oppressive intensity, the band dexterously manage to retain a sense of epic grandeur and the defiant optimism that all is not yet lost – even if the sorrow charged melodic peaks have a more frayed, urgent aesthetic.

This tension matches the primordial growl of the vocals as they build connections between the echo chambers and webs of misinformation that fuel an age of distrust and isolation.  Stupidity On Demand provides an utterly coruscating opening that the seething Layers Of Lies – which includes a savage contribution from former Link vocalist Inge – does not allow to go to waste.  Retaliate convulses as thunderous rhythms and elegiac melodicism viscerally intertwine, before the haunting majesty of the cello braided A Storm Within.