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Malebolgia: Requiem for the inexorable
12/08/10 || The Duff
Malebolgia aren’t the smartest of gents to grace the death metal world, from the get-go their band name phonetically similar to the words “male bulge”. That out of the way (and my heterosexuality firmly established), I picked this album because the Lord would have my hide if I neglected it and because it was stated “for fans of Immolation, Morbid Angel and Origin”.
Now for another reason these guys aren’t the brightest of cookies, you can scratch the innovation of the former two and go for the all-out blistering ball-busting nature of lackluster Origin – this is like “Antithesis”, but trimmed down so thankfully less of an overdrawn affair where repetition plagues thought of stimulation. Congrats guys, you’ve realized if the songwriting isn’t there, it’s best to keep this style of brutal death/grind on the short side – so how does it fare in a gradually evolving sub-genre where the chaff is quickly and harshly sorted from the wheat?
Well, one big problem with this album is the “no hooks” technically overblown music not in the manner I appreciate most (as in free-flowing and majestic), but rather jagged and intrusive in a rape-y sort of way. At times too the music is masked by a flurry of intense drumming that has not been fine-tuned during the songwriting phase – I’m not undervaluing the guy, because he can play very modestly (although not too creative a musician), but with the constant barrage of foot-work to the face and triggered bullshit flying all over the fucking place the guitars at times could be playing absolutely anything and you wouldn’t know it; a one trick pony as far as the brutality goes if you’re willing to forego the run-of-the-mill vocalist in developing your opinion.
The production renders the guitars with the ugly as dick sound achieved on “Antithesis”; muffled on the low-end, slick on the high-end notes, nothing comes out on top. The musicianship is of an incredibly well practiced nature, but the overall vibe of the album is unidirectional with sporadic moments of Gorguts/Immolation, unfortunately in too much of a stand-out manner, like they know how much they love such bands but have no idea how to integrate their influence into the bigger picture.
All said, I do get the impression I’m selling these guys short, so don’t get me wrong, there is some fantastic death metal on “Requiem for the inexorable”, but the chief influences I’m picking up on are Cephalic Carnage, real dull Origin and oddly enough The Red Chord – death metal seems to be moving in better directions with bands such as Ulcerate, Portal, Gorod and I’m afraid to say for Malebolgia that for me personally such a middle-ground brutal/technical-style is presently landing by the wayside.
- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Comatose Music
- Website: Malebolgia MySpace
- Band
- Joseph Darling: guitars, vocals
- Matt Lovett: guitars
- Timothy Knouff: bass
- Kevin Hedgecock: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Degrading Succession
- 02. Born of the Nephelim
- 03. Veiled Impurity
- 04. Involuntary Recollections
- 05. Discordant Splendor
- 06. Requiem
- 07. Infesdead
- 08. Beast of Euphoria
- 09. Cultus Parasiticus
- 10. Dominion of Alchemy
