Black Metal should be fertile ground for experimentation and oddity. In a lot of ways it kind of is, but then on the other hand it’s so ‘kvlt’ and ‘trve’ that fans hate on absolutely everything else that isn’t Mayhem. I’ve gone past the point of caring about such trivialities. Do I like a bit of Scooter or Billie Eilish? Yeah I do, but I also like Cannibal Corpse, Darkthrone, Satanic Warmaster and so on. Just embrace all forms of music, after all isn’t that what experimentation is all about? If you like Blackgaze then really you should be able to see the merit in Shoegaze and so forth.
I have to say that I’m always a little sceptical of Experimental Black Metal as it’s a noisy genre at the best of times. Of course I can handle that barrage of sonic torment but it can sometimes just sound like pompous tripe. Will MRTVI prove to be a different story? This one-man UK/ Serbian project shares ties with most notably Sarah Jezebel Deva of ex-CoF fame. Although I’m sure this will be a far more extreme affair. Having formed back in 2014 MRTVI has put out a couple of full lengths and thus we reach the all-important third album. That album is Omniscient Hallucinatory Delusion and it comes to us through Transcending Obscurity Records.
The album opens with Living In Repetition which instantly goes in for the weird with Post-Black Metal riffs and overall bizarre guitar tones, noisy but coherent I feel it’s a good introduction to the record. The rasping vocals only add to this strange Experimental, Technical and almost Prog Black Metal assault. Mass Hallucination comes in next, it borrows a lot in terms of riffs from Tech Brutal Death which naturally I can get really behind, it’s a strange but welcome mix of musical prowess and sheer Blackened suffering. Cycles Of Suffering which follows is this weird interlude that shows traits of Prog and Post-Black Metal, slowly it builds with helpings of ethereal bliss that show that MRTVI aren’t just over the top barbarity. Invisible Scars is a similarly strange almost Ambient track, normally I would hate this kind of thing in abundance but as an album experience it really works. Self Slaughtering and Exercise In Mistakes take things back to the more Black Metal edge but still laden with Noise and Tech elements in an obscure but very enjoyable blend of Extreme Metal.
Into the second half of the record we’re kinda used to MRTVI by now, Chains Of Illusion and Slave Mentality both shining examples of how insane this project is. However, although the music is still great it’s kind of repetitive by this point despite all of the strangeness, and knowing that so much is still to go it’s a little draining. Terminal Ignorance gives us a bit of a break with its almost cosmic chanting, it’s haunting, different and attention grabbing, honestly I’d be just as happy to see MRTVI do a whole album of this kind of thing as opposed to adding the Black Metal to the mix. Perceived Entity also lends itself to this brand of oddity, the clean vocals becoming a welcome and indeed needed break, this is the kind of vibe I think that MRTVI should mainly focus on. The final closure is Obscured Reality, this song is pretty atypical for the bulk of the record and nothing especially flash.
All in all this album is just a bit too long, I will admit that the second half is bolstered by the amount of interlude-like songs, that said a few of the more Black Metal tracks could’ve been dropped and the structure could have therefore been neater. It’s a shame because the music really lends itself to a full album experience, yet strangely the songs are better suited as one off listens. It sounds a lot like I’m putting MRTVI down and I don’t really mean to, the actual sound that this project brings is interesting, new and innovative, refreshing Black Metal it could be said. This is an album that is well worth checking out for at least intrigue alone.
(7/10 George Caley)
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