Kulk – Choosing To Die
Release Date: 28th August 2026
Label: Church Road Records
In this titanic expedition of human suffering, Norwich doom duo Kulk follow up 2024’s It Gets Worse with their highly anticipated new release Choosing to Die.
With an extensive bout of UK tours under their belt, as well as festival appearances at Arctangent and Desertfest, the East Anglian pair return to the studio to explore the hubris left behind when coming to age, and the furthering development of their own personal relationship. Through an ever-present squeal of feedback and bedrock shattering rhythms, this fleeting yet impactful record resonates like a sledgehammer.
First up is latest single (and most recent video) ‘An Endless Knife’, a devastatingly brutal reminder to the fact that “we are all just a couple of bad days away from the worst”. With a colossal wall of sound only waning to let more feedback flood in, these two and a half minutes steamroll listeners with a finesse of sludgery best fit for an album opener of this magnitude.
Nor do the riffs stop in ‘We’re Worried About You’. With unrelenting blows parrying between the guitar and drums throughout, this track acts as the perfect segue to the cacophonous ‘Being Forgotten’. Accompanied by oscillating synth drones added to the fuzzed out mire, this piece perpetually stampedes with little relief.
While ‘Collapse’ highlights that sometimes less is more, allowing the dust to settle around its radio transmitter style chants and bone crunching low licks, ‘For Blood’ is an almost entirely instrumental slow burn, introducing more intricate synth layering and dissonance as it builds.
With a surprisingly bouncy guitar line and a generous helping of filter sweeps that drift into almost alt-rock territory, ‘To Take Life’ stands out as the most straight-laced feature amongst the chaos, before transitioning into the harmonic heavy ‘The Saddest Holiday’. The first track to deliver considerable airtime to both members for vocal duties on this record, its groove driven refrain is a welcome change of pace ahead of this collections penultimate track.
Seeing things out ahead of a bereft field recording (‘Our Last Walk’) is the lead single ‘Ache’. Significantly longer than the rest of its counterparts on this record, and accompanied by a resolute violin melody midst the lumbering grooves, this high gain hymnal encapsulates the bittersweet weight and brutality of having love for those around us.
FFO: Part Chimp / Crowbar / The Scoleri Brothers
Recommended Track: For Blood