It was two years ago that the French black metal entity Mortis Mutilati released its second album of crypt dwelling black metal. Inspired by cemeteries, death and the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, ‘Nameless Here for Evermore’ was an unsurprisingly dark, gothic example of the genre at its raw essence. For album number three, ‘Mélopée Funèbre’, the band (or sole member Macabre, moreover) has explored the theme of love. Dead love, to be precise. In addition, the band has also upgraded its production values by getting Devo of Marduk to master this latest platter of funereal melodic black metal which, the promo material insists, still retains its “hand made charm”.
The title track is the first to be encountered; a gently strummed piece which incorporates female voices to add a further, somewhat disturbing, layer of invitation to this necrophilic feast. Once ‘Vénus Anadyomène’ takes over, the depth of the production is revealed as guitars, drums and bass enter the picture in complete unity. Musically, it’s pretty much the same mid-pace, eerily melodic black metal as before, with repetitive melodies and riffs infecting every recess of your consciousness while bass drums beat in the background. Perhaps the one notable difference is that Macabre’s vocals appear to be more violently delivered. Yet in contrast to this escalation in extremity, the sombreness of the opening tracks is disrupted by a couple of conspicuous keyboard interjections. In ‘Vénus Anadyomène’, we get a section of weird puffy effects, while on ‘Ophélia’, the keys sound akin to panpipes. But beyond these instances, black metal trauma takes centre stage, thankfully.
On ‘Oraison du Soir’, towering blackened riffs give way to subtler realms before the track takes off, while on ‘Reliquiae’ elements of Gorgoroth seep through the acid laced guitar melodies. The whole time, Macabre’s impassioned screams convey grief and unnatural adoration, but so too does the music, as serenity underpins the inherent grimness of each composition. In this sense, it’s impressive how Mortis Mutilati conveys narrative in subtle musical shifts and, simultaneously, seems to make time stand still with this stream of departure and decay. Then again, as the band has proven before, its speciality is conveying mood and atmosphere. True to form, ‘Morte’ roams the spectrum of dramatism: one minute beautifully acoustic, the next, epically heavy. ‘Fingers of Death’ contains the stand out moment though. Again, haunting guitar lines levitate above pulsating rhythms only for an unstoppable injection of pace to tear out, topped off with a masterstroke scream.
Indicative of the sonic quality here, that final track even sees the bass pop richly up as one might expect from a Marduk tune. As great as ‘Mélopée Funèbre’ does sound overall, I must confess I preferred the rawer edge of ‘Nameless Here for Evermore’. But to be fair, the tracks on that one also seemed to stand on their own a bit more. As can happen with this type of dark art, the songs have a tendency to sound singularly moribund, and whether or not you can throw yourself into the concept will determine how positively you perceive it as a whole. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine that the time defying forces at work here will allow many to escape its eternal grasp.
(7.5/10 Jamie)
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