Mental Cruelty

Combining the crushing, at times dissonant onslaught of blackened deathcore with the grandiosity of orchestral and even choral arrangements, German group Mental Cruelty stand apart from other depths-churning metal acts. After building a buzz within the scene on the independent releases Purgatorium (2016) and Infernis (2019), the band endured a near-total personnel overhaul in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, bouncing back with the ambitious Zweilicht in 2023. Singer Lucca Schmerler had been performing under the name Mental Cruelty since 2014, but the band considers ...