William Roussel aka Meyhnach aka Melancholic Lord of Torments aka Guru Dreadlock is a French multi-instrumentalist and vocalist and a man of many names and bands. He touted infamy as a member of Les Légions Noires, gaining notoriety for Mutiilation releasing a slew of albums, EP’s, splits and compilations before disbanding (himself). Keeping incredibly busy he also is known for Hell Militia, Satanicum Tenebrae, Sektemtum, Suicide Circle and Doctor Livingstone among others. This is the second album under the Meyhnach banner, following on from ‘Non Omnis Moriar’ back in 2017. Here he is responsible for all aspects of the project.

What we get are seven fairly lengthy odes to misery, it’s easy to tell this from the track titles alone as we are taken through subjects of “paranoia, pandemics, terrorism, and other faces of Evil of the third millennium.” No shutting out the world here and escaping from it all so it’s a case of confronting the evils of man through 51 minutes of morbid torture and anguish. But don’t worry that much, it’s not actually too terrible to comprehend and surprisingly was not quite the endurance test I expected.

Songs are actually quite loosely constructed here and the instrumentation from the drum (programming?) to the riffing work in well-coordinated fashion allowing the repetitive and simplistic melodies to shine through. This is black metal but with an overriding factor of doom-laden structuring amidst its pessimistic thought process. The vocals are naturally a major factor and are gurgling in the extreme like they are being grumbled out by an alien toad overlord. You aren’t going to gain knowledge of the lyrics through listening but the plod of songs such as opener ‘Virus’ with its slow mood and pacing with an occasional stomping martial drumming patella purvey the fact that all is not right in this world. There’s something about this and the genocidal funeral mass of ‘To Exterminate The World’ that intrigues, at times it seems perfunctory and amateur sounding, rather than the work of someone with decades of experience but everything gets under the skin like a scab you are desperate to pick off and sticks there for grim life. Occasional surges of speed and thorny guitar peels keep you on your toes and stop the somewhat ponderous songs becoming too formulaic but add the croaking tones to this template and this is certainly not going to appeal to all tastes.

At times it’s quite hallucinatory as the melodies and rhythms takes hold and the artist is not afraid to put a few odd ideas as we move further ‘Into The Weird’ with skewed lurching grooves spreading a definite feeling of unease and dread. ‘Grim Omen’ despite title lifts the mood slightly with a punky brackish beat bouncing away and giving some air and a buoyancy to proceedings. Calling it jolly would be a step too far but it’s far from miserable. A touch of spacey, futuristic keyboards give it a really ominous tone at the half-way mark though before it romps away and furrows into one of the albums blackest sections. There is also a macabre sense at play, the keyboards on ‘Relapse’ tinge it with a baroque and funeral tone with the vocals rising in horror as the breakdown hits and our grim troubadour really gets to the roots of his mania.

This is one of those albums that really grows on you and if you are happy to wallow in its dark depths getting to the end and finale ‘Tentacles of Anguish’ will not be a problem, in fact it will be addictive and compulsive that you do so. Perhaps this is the albums charm or maybe its curse as this one could inhabit the darkest recesses of the mind if given free reign; releasing the demons within.

(7.5/10 Pete Woods)

https://www.facebook.com/meyhnach

https://osmoseproductions.bandcamp.com/album/miseria-de-profundis