Mütiilation
Deconstructed and isolated French metal cuts to the core of emotion in alienation.
Remains of a Ruined, Dead, Cursed Soul
Drakkar
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1999
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Production: Living tissue of fragile but resoundingly firm sound.
Review: Dramatic nocturnal inversion metal invades aural consciousness with screams and riffs dissonant in both tone as chords in patternings constructing intersections at irregular rhythms and harmonies form the primordial antagonism from which the rest of the album is crafted, emphasizing a strong sense of transcendence in the phrases which rise from the dying chaos of disorder to create an intimation of direction so profoundly universal in the translation of its relative motion to tokens of order that its presence alters each song to conclude in an unfinished sense of emptiness within the mind of something desiring more. As such, this is Romanticism in theme and lyrically elegant music within the rubric of black metal gnarled riffing and drop-beat throbbing time division.
Phrasing is delicate and emphasizes similarity in structure and modal potential in harmony, forming fluid verses of melodic combination which slip elegantly from guitar over the hypnotic even pulse of linear percussion, and forms the aspect most admirable of this music, which is its ancient sense of European tastes in tone and architecture that lends to this work a gothic, archeological undertone. Shadowing in the form of structurally embedded allusions is light but significant and evolves with each iteration of motif in circular breakdowns depositing the disoriented listener in a final sequence of progressions suggesting the equilibrium to a healthily perverse chaos.
Reinventing mood and spatial awareness with each song, this band masterfully command attention through precisely cut and exactingly shaped, absolutely coherent narrative songwriting that emphasizes the mood within structure and gives to simple motions and enlightening sense of era through the layering of portions of a progressing melody within tonal progressions. This immanent sense of motion invisible but central to subtle changes causing evolution and change, in the autumnal context of these moribund and somewhat youth-nostalgic poetic invocations, shapes itself to form the progress of awareness toward a rich sense of existential presence and loss.
Direct and minimal instrumentation, vocals which cover a range of sounds and significant variations in timbre within their primary melodic output, and immersive combinations of hypnotic pulse in tempo and decadent, ambitious, glorious and yet ancient and corroding melody, as suspenders of belief open a window for the sense of structure and delight in living that lies behind these compositions. Hailed and widely sought for good reason, this release is an epic feast of blackness.
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1. The eggs of melancholy
2. New false prophet
3. The hanged priest
4. Curse my funeral
5. Inferi ir ductus
6. A dream
7. Black Millenium
8. No mercy for humans
9. Black as lead and death
Length: 44:09
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Grimly Reborn (Drakkar 2001)
The obscure French madmen reveal a summary of their songwriting ideas applied as a formula, with no unique shape to songs as previously distinguished their work, but a constant format of frequently changing riffs employing the same techniques that had once made this band great. Where previous works were a view into a developing psyche the material that is now Mütiilation lacks any desire for conceptualization and seems almost an offhand repetition for the sake of the process itself, leading to confusion as evident in the lack of motif development in songs and the pathetic cover, apologetic post-faked-suicide rant, and constant pleading for attention through use of emphatic style. It goes nowhere and should not; it has no spirit.
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BLACK | DEATH | HEAVY | SPEED | THRASH | GRINDCORE
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