Before I get into this review, I just want to be clear that this review is based on the HD version of Malivore that was uploaded to YouTube when the album was released. I did indeed get a download of the album to review as always, but for reasons that remain a mystery, the download appears to be a different version to the YouTube one. The track lengths are all different (to the YT version), the mix is painfully loud and the whole thing is unclear enough to make it extremely difficult to review. Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware this isn’t meant to be an easy album to listen to, but there’s a massive difference between brutal, non-traditional music that’s deliberately disquieting, disorientating and confrontational (for reference, seeing Godflesh perform Streetcleaner in full at Damnation was one of the musical highlights for 2022 for me), and the same music with everything turned up to 17, to the point where it’s impossible to hear/identify very much beyond the very broadest of strokes.
All the above therefore, made it all the more surprising when I tracked down the HD version on YouTube and discovered that when I can hear all the disparate elements involved in this album, and I’m not being overwhelmed with indeterminate noise, I actually – shock horror – quite like it. It won’t be for everyone (strong contender for understatement of the year, that one), but if you’re the target market for this, you’ll find a lot to enjoy here. There’s guttural howling, atonal, discordant “melodies”, creepy organ parts, and some truly spectacular ominous crescendos. Because who doesn’t love a good ominous crescendo?
So, by way of introduction, Hasard is a solo project birthed from Les Chants du Hasard (classical/orchestral with occasional metal vocals) and works to much the same modus operandi as its parent project, but make it black metal – and haven’t they just. A lot of this album is essentially what a lot of the Norwegian pioneers of black metal might’ve made back in the early 90s if they’d paid even less attention to the traditional building blocks that make up a song, thrown in an organ, and just made as much blackly evil noise as possible. In terms of the refusal to make use of any of said building blocks, Malivore reminds me a little of the weirder end of post/atmospheric metal, in that anything even vaguely resembling traditional song structures has been thrown out with such vigour that I can almost hear Hasard shouting “AND STAY OUT” as said traditionalities go flying off into the night.
Across five tracks (frankly it feels like more, which you can take as positively or negatively as you like), what we do have in the absence of traditional structures, are screaming, unintelligible vocals, brutal, repetitive guitars, and droning, lurching synths and other instruments, that combine to create an unsettling musical pandemonium. The closest I can get to describing the overall effect, is that it’s like being overwhelmed and on the verge of a panic attack at a really loud gig – there are familiar elements flying around, but nothing you can actually make sense of at that exact moment in time. Almost like there’s something far more familiar and sensical lurking in the heart of the beast, but Hasard have no intention of letting you find it. Rather than a regular album that might throw the odd bit of experimentation at you, this is pure frenzied experiment, that throws out just enough of the ordered and conventional to keep you listening.
Seeing as it’s only five tracks, I could try and dissect each of them at this point, but I’m not going to even attempt that. To be frank, adjectives will only take you so far when it comes to describing an album like this, and I’ve already reached both my own limits and those of Mr Roget’s famous literary dinosaur. It’s more of an experience rather than a traditional album, and one you’ll just have to have for yourself. A fair proportion of metalheads (not to mention people in general) will realise very quickly that this isn’t an experience they particularly want to have (had I not found the YouTube version, I would be firmly in this camp), but for the rest of you, this may well fill a gap in your collection that you didn’t know was there. Probably one that correlates to a very specific type of snarky, nihilistic mood where you don’t need or want anything to make sense. Just make sure to a) turn your volume down until you’ve got a handle on the beast, and b) make sure you’re listening to the version that’s on YouTube and Bandcamp.
(7.5/10 Ellie)
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