Cloak are a very new four-piece wrecking crew out of San Francisco who play a raging combination of black metal and old-school death metal with a feel and delivery that’s heavily indebted to hardcore punk.

On their debut cassette Succumb, they tear through four songs in 20 minutes. The lo-fi production style hearkens back to black-metal classics like Mayhem and Darkthrone. The tempo is mostly raging fast, but the occasional ugly, sludge-influenced riffing breaks up the onslaught very effectively.

The screamed vocals are searing and effective, and the tempo changes are tight and well-executed. The drums crash and boom loudly, while the heavily distorted guitar and bass sound mean and messy. It’s everything you could want from a debut EP in this style, and at the appropriate price tag of $6.66 for the tape (free for download), you’ve got no reason not to succumb to the raw power of Cloak.

Succumb is available now from Transylanian Tapes.