This Gift Is a Curse

Hailing from Stockholm, This Gift is a Curse play a combination of hardcore and sludge with great influences from both the occult black metal-scene as well as drone soundscapes. Spanning from slow, epic sections to faster, energetic parts, the songs show a great diversity in both musicianship and creativity. Although the four members originated from different parts of the country, an accidental meeting by Jonas A. Holmberg and Johan Nordlund the late summer of 2008 led to the birth of This Gift is a Curse. The two had not been living in Stockholm for more than a couple of months but were already inspired to start a musical project based in their new hometown. While talking noticed that they had a lot of congenial ideas concerning the making of music. They instantly recruited Lars Gunnarsson and Patrik Andersson, who both seemed to share their musical standpoint, and thus, the circle was completed and has been spinning ever since. Due to the fact that all of the members have been part of various constellations in the past, such as Seven Nautical Miles from Piteå/Sweden (Sound Devastation Records) and Grizzly Twister from Gävle/Sweden (Midmarch Records. The band is nowadays seen as influencers on the now classical Gävle-sound), entering the hardcore / heavy music scene again felt like a natural step. Many acclaimed shows have been performed and many are yet to come, as the bands reputation as a great live act spreads rapidly. A live experience that could be best described as a dark, natural force - acting as an emerging black storm of noise and tension, a swelling cloud that will sweep over the audience and drag everything down into the mist… A demo recording took place rather early and five songs were put on tape in the bands rehearsal room back in 2009. But since the band grew more comfortable with their goals and their personal evolvement in both taste and musical preferences, the five songs felt outdated only a couple of months later. Due to this fact, This Gift is a Curse decided to enter a professional studio to record something more representative. In march 2010 the band entered the legendary Sunlight Studios (Famous for recordings & productions with bands like: Entombed, Katatonia, Tiamat, Dismember, Disfear, Centinex, Refused etc) During one week, the band, with help from Tomas Skogsberg, recorded what later came to be their selftitled debut-EP. Since the debut CDEP the band have played a lot of shows and done a number of tours in Scandinavia as well as Europe, meanwhile working on their debut full-length album. During the late summer and early fall of 2011 the band recorded what came to be “I, Guilt Bearer” at a secret location north of Stockholm. To be free from any time limit, they asked the producer Magnus Björk (who worked with bands like Meleeh and Children of Fall) to move his studio to this specific location so the band could work with the recording without boundaries and whenever they felt like. What you hear is a harsh, honest and straight forward sound combined with a solid core of musical- as well as dark blunt emotional depth. https://www.facebook.com/pages/This-Gift-is-A-Curse/ Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.