Full of Hell: Coagulated Bliss (yellow, white & green mix vinyl/indie exclusive) LP

While the focus on songwriting already makes Coagulated Bliss the most grounded album in Full of Hell’s catalog, it’s also the first Full of Hell record that tries in earnest to reflect the world around it—not in some broad, monotony-of-evil way, but the everyday horrors of life in small town America. “The American dream is small towns,” Hazard says. “But anyone that’s grown up in a small town realizes it’s just as fucked up in a small town as it is in a big city—if not more, because it’s more condensed.” Walker’s lyrics have always framed their suffering with what he calls “fantastical, metaphorical shit,” but on Coagulated Bliss his writing is clear and direct. The album’s title is meant partly to reflect the idea of the over-pursuit of happiness leading to misery—whether in addiction, greed, or anything else. Much of the album is rooted in the band’s own experiences. “A hundred dead ends, a thousand dead friends,” Walker screams on “Doors to Mental Agony.” “I hear their howling, I hear them weeping.” There are corpses slicked with morning dew, “false balms for deep wounds,” numb failures, thieves in the night and killers in the dark. The album’s viciousness and Walker’s clear reading of the world around him might scan as misanthropy—“humanity to blame,” he concludes after running through the ways the earth is “riddled with sores” in “Gasping Dust”—but it comes from a place of disappointment that’s driven by a deep love for people and life and the world.