Album Review: All Quiet by Terror Cell
Rather obvious on its face, All Quiet, by the noisy, sludgy screamo powerhouse Terror Cell, is an album focused on the victims of trauma and violence on a systematic scale, a theme literally shown through the gorgeously textured cover art by Miriam Cooper. It’s about the immeasurable misery of having your world turned upside down by entities that do not care for the prolonging of your life beyond how it may earn riches, expand empires, and subjugate subordinates. For any band, tackling this subject matter is a titanic endeavor that requires titanic effort.
Terror Cell achieves that end.
In just shy of 33 minutes, Terror Cell has released one of the most harrowing, effective, and brilliant musical statements regarding war, violence, and genocide in 2024, standing in good company alongside monumental releases from Chat Pile and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Musically, it’s bestial and visceral. Screams from Joey Woodard (and sometimes guitarist Wes Durham) are absolutely, positively ferine. Drumming from Hunter Johnson is equal parts creative, unhinged, deft, and precise–a balancing act that few manage in heavy music. Guitars and bass (from Steven Terry) vary from nimble, thick, lanate chords, arpeggios, and riffs to caterwauling, echoing tones & melodies–often on top of one another and often to a disgusting effect or sincere beauty. That much is obvious on an initial listening.
That said, what truly elevates the whole project is its ability to execute its intended message. With song titles like “Come and See,” referencing the Soviet anti-war film of the same name, as well as “Dulce et Decorum est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” referencing the poems by Wilfred Owen–both masterpieces and desperate castigations of war–and, most obviously, the album’s title All Quiet, referencing the classic war novel All Quiet on the Western Front (often adapted, most recently to film in 2022), the band makes it clear where they stand on the horrors of war and inconceivable violence.
But the album is not just stating a hollow cliché like “War is bad” and expecting you to nod in agreement. It’s asking the listener to consider how we’ve learned nothing from these conflicts that have occurred over the last century–how we watch numbly as the pattern repeats for new generations, letting populations and cultures be eradicated without so much as a second thought.
“Bloodletting” and “Invocation” directly call this “blindness” and behavior out by name, stating that the powers that be turn their heads away as genocide and systemic destruction hang over us daily like a Sword of Damocles, inevitably turning its consequences back inwards, not on their perpetrators and abettors, but on people who do not stand against it. This is not just a righteous plea, but a declaration of intense anger–a line in the sand, miles in diameter, filled with the corpses of an estimated 42,000 innocent civilians and children–anger wielded like a leaden crowbar, battering the listener to give even a little of a shit about the atrocities ongoing abroad and at the behest of our government.
All in all, that’s what delivers this record to its highest heights. Everything culminates in this engulfing tragic anger that necessitates a response from its listener to a vital question. On “Did You Come for Blood Alone?,” it asks if you will stand with the side that feels this same anger and stand against these heinous acts, or will you continue to wait your turn to be the target of that destruction? And it does all of this with relentless yet composed musical fury that will stand as one of the year’s best in heavy music. A truly great and thoughtful record that will stick with me for years to come.
All Quiet is out now via Fischer King Records on all streaming platforms and on vinyl. Catch Terror Cell live at their album release show on Tuesday, November 19th at The Camel, joined by Ostraca, Beggars, and kristeva. Check out the concert flyer below for more info, and stay connected with Terror Cell by following them on social media.
