Kulk – Choosing To Die (Album)

Kulk – Choosing To Die

Release: 28 August 2026||Genre: Doom, Sludge, Noise Rock, Psych||Label: Church Road Records

Grief, love and human fragility – proving that vulnerability can be as heavy as any riff.

With Choosing to Die, Norwich doom duo Kulk deliver their third album, delving deeper into the dark corners of the human condition. Building on 2024’s It Gets Worse, Jade Squires and Thom Longdin’s voracious pursuit of sonic exploration and endless touring notably marks the band’s debut on Church Road Records.

Opening track and single, An Endless Knife reflects on growing up and the loss of youthful invincibility and the realization that life can change suddenly. Despite its bleak outlook, its core message is one of compassion and looking after one another.

“When we’re younger, sometimes it feels like we’re invincible. Like everyone we know, and love are constant parts of the universe. When that reality is shattered, it changes how we see the world. You come to realise we are all just a couple of bad days from the worst. At the same time, it feels devastating. It reminds us to look after each other”

From the opening salvo, it’s almost impossible to believe that this suffocating wall of sound is conjured by just merely two musicians. With another sprawling UK tour looming, the Scottish dates — Friday 25 September at the Hug and Pint in Glasgow and Saturday 26 September at Home Bar in Edinburgh — have become essential viewing, if only to witness the alchemy firsthand. Having already shared stages with Crowbar, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs and Conan, alongside appearances at Arctangent and Desertfest, Kulk’s live reputation suggests that whatever devastation is tearing through my speakers barely scratches the surface of the ritual unfolding on stage.

Overall, Kluk are pioneering a contemporary exploration of human suffering, ultimately rooted in love, and those fleeting moments of warmth and hope are unmistakably reflected throughout. Beneath the suffocating distortion and unrelenting hostility lie fleeting glimmers of warmth and hope, moments that slice through the gloom like distant lights in thick fog. It’s this tension between tenderness and violence that gives the album true weight. Rather than diluting the aggression, these flashes of vulnerability sharpen it; he crushing passages feel all the heavier when set against moments of humanity, amplifying the album’s emotional impact and making its darkness hit with even greater force.

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