vote
7.0
- Bands:
MUTIILATION - Duration: 00:42:37
- Available from: 03/29/2024
- Label:
-
Osmose Productions
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If there was a cult level calculation table, Mütiilation would surely accumulate very high coefficients in each item.
Active for over thirty years? Check. Aura of mystery around their work and their lives? Check. A psychotic frontman, with the added bonus of a one-man band? Double check. In short, all that’s missing is the return to the scene after seventeen years – and not that “Sorrow Galaxies” was exactly an unmissable album – to at least approach “Black Metal Cult” with a bit of curiosity and enthusiasm.
As the title suggests, this is not a record made up of frills and experimentation: after more than six decades, black metal has also entered, and has long since reached, the maturity and age in which for some fans it must simply be reassuring, offering what is expected, so from this point of view we are dealing with an almost perfect record. The production is deliberately sparse and dirty, even if it certainly cannot evoke the same spirit of desolation and rot of the golden times; the voice is beastly, anguishing atmospheres, capable of developing some real thrills at times. And, after all, we are not dealing with a beginner: the good Meyhna’ch knows the whirlpools of depression and psychosis well.
If, however, you are not among those who like to put on a black metal album and find yourself dealing with an “Invincible Shield”, only turned to black, the shivers could certainly decrease in intensity, without disappointing expectations. Some new elements are present, for example in the frontal sound assault, which we could define as more Swedish than French, but then again the years pass and the horizons broaden a bit.
In general, we are faced with an anxiety-inducing and almost uninterrupted uptempo, which manages to become even more pressing just when there seems to be no more room for explosion (for example in the ending of “Hominicide”). “From the Plains of Ice and Death” is however more sardonic and icy, thanks to its almost industrial tone. Furthermore, “Into the Cursed Necropolis”, whirling and enthralling, also brings into play a theatrical dimension: both in the voice and thanks to one of the few slowdowns on the album – generally winking at certain things by Mayhem. A slower and more atmospheric atmosphere which, on Middle Eastern strings (not surprisingly), returns to the start of “The Fall Of Islam”, which however soon turns into the devastating sonic description of a new crusade.
In short, if Mütiilation live primarily from a state of cult that is more evoked than continuously carried forward over the years, this does not mean that they have been reduced, with this return to the scene, to celebrating themselves wearily; the sense of malaise and nihilism is always strong and, as far as we’re concerned, it’s enough to leave “Black Metal Cult” on the table for a few more listens.
