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Melechesh: The epigenesis
10/01/11 || Altmer
Israelis? So it would seem (their name is Hebrew, and means “King of Fire”), except for the fact this band is now based in my homeland. That means they reside, in, you guessed it, the land of weed and tulips. Strangely enough, their music seems unaffected by that. They definitely do not have a Dutch sound about them – I believe the album was recorded in Turkey, which would aid that idea. In short, what you will find here does not sound like your every day metal. I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for that. I am fucking tired of bands that sound like In Flames or Grave. We have enough generic death and thrash metal bands already.
What we do find in this album is a combination of various styles. Most important ingredients are black metal and some death metal, with an occasional thrashy riff coming up here and there. It’s played with some excellent vigour, too. The album retains a lot of intensity and this is a good thing, because the vibe aids in making the material engaging.
That the album is intense is a necessity as well – this album is ridiculously long and hard to listen to in one setting. In fact, the über-long run time is a major flaw of this album, and it makes me put off listening to it. Often I find I’d rather be spinning something that doesn’t require as much time, since it’s not THAT good that you keep coming back to it. It definitely is an album loaded with lots of quality material, though. Especially lots of the guitar work is of stellar quality.
Another minor qualm is that the vocals sometimes degenerate into black metal pixie territory, which can be annoying quite frankly. In fact, the vocals are not really that amazing. Sometimes like on “Sacred Geometry”, the vocals can work extremely well in the context of the song, but his vocals have a van Drunen-ish quality to them. Most people would say that’s a plus – personally I ain’t a fan, so there’s not really a chance of me proclaiming I am a fan of this.
However, there’s more than enough pluses to make up for all of that. The guitar work is frankly ridiculous at times. There’s a lot of heavy, extreme riffing that hits just the right highs – just like Behemoth, these guys have a knack for knowing how to knock out the right riffs. Some of the riffs have a more melodic tinge, which makes it veer towards the more melodic black metal end of the spectrum – something that is very much appreciated by me. There’s a recurrent theme running through the album of guitars using scales that sound very Middle Eastern – a nice tribute to their roots. This is always appreciated. In fact, I believe there are some original instruments on this album – in that sense they are like Nile, but they do not have the crappy muddy production of that band.
The production is another big plus. The bass is kind of irrelevant, but the guitars have a nice sharp tone, the drums sound excellent, and most of the mix is great (like I said, I’m missing some bass here and there). Everything’s crystal clear. I always hated underproduced extreme metal. There’s plenty ways you can sound raw without sounding like you’re recording a) a demo or b) inside a tin can. Melechesh clearly understood that and thank fuck. I really hate it when bands in the extreme metal scene harp on that they want to sound organic, by which they mean Darkthrone. Only Darkthrone are supposed to do that. Not Melechesh, and Melechesh made sure they didn’t. Thanks for that. Much like Behemoth again – they understand production values.
There are also some slower moments on this disc, such as “When Halos of Candles Collide”, as well as a few instrumental moments. They serve to break the momentum of the disc. It was a good move – this album is fairly chaotic, and those slower moments bring a bit of fresh air and let the album breathe a bit so that we don’t keep getting knocked around our rooms in which we keep our sexy speaker systems (or headphones).
In AA I claimed that this was an 8 – it is musically that, but probably some other factors drag it down a little. So in the review I’ll be a little harsher – in AA an 8 is probably justified. But for the actual review, I’ll lower it by half a point, since that is probably a fairer grade. Keep in mind: this album is pretty good and you should be buying it if you have any interest in extreme metal that deviates a bit from the norm.
Recommendation: Keep the runtime in check a bit, you would be excellent instead of great if you just didn’t completely overload some of the songs. Conciseness is a virtue.
- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Website: www.melechesh.com
- Band
- Ashmedi: vocals, guitars, sitar
- Moloch: guitars, buzuq
- Rahm: bass
- Xul: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Ghouls of Nineveh
- 02. Grand Gathas of Baal Sin
- 03. Sacred Geometry
- 04. The Magickan and the Drones
- 05. Mystics of the Pillar
- 06. When Halos of Candles Collide
- 07. Defeating the Giants
- 08. Illumination: The Face of Shamash
- 09. Negative Theology
- 10. A Greater Chain of Being
- 11. The Epigenesis
