With their debut album Ufång, released in 2020, the Austrian band Perchta had created a new niche in music. Their atmospheric black metal soundscape was built from the usual parts, but included also instruments from their native Tyrol and featured Alpine singing styles and lyrics in the band’s local dialect – a novelty in extreme music.
I quite liked the first few pre-released tracks from the band’s debut album, but after I had given the whole album a few spins, my excitement somewhat waned. The folk element was altogether too pronounced. In a few places, the vocal performance came close to yodelling which made me cringe. The dialect, also, was difficult to understand, even if you knew German. This specific sonic mixture, I felt in the end, was aimed at a very limited audience and took some serious getting used to.
Four years and one pandemic later, Perchta are back with a new album. After numerous listens of D’Muata I can say that their music still occupies the same special niche sketched above of which they are the sole inhabitants and with which they “aim to preserve and rejuvenate regional traditions”. I can also say that their output still has the same problems. Namely, sometimes their music sounds somewhat infatuated with their home turf and even kitschy. Nevertheless, it is clearly audible that the band have grown in every way and that they have refined their musicianship and song writing abilities: From the vocal performance to the various instruments, everything sounds better, more accomplished, more developed, more ambitious, more impressive.
The band’s mastermind, singer Frau Percht, is a midwife in real life and confronted with the suffering, the gore and the beauty, the strength and the vulnerability of life on an everyday basis. D’Muata translates to English as “The Mother” and is a feminist manifesto of sorts, thematising female sexuality, menstruation stigma, the loss of children, violence against women, and even femicide. In the context of black metal these are definitely not typical subjects and their uncompromising and honest portrayal is certainly to be lauded. What I found suspiciously omitted from the discussion, however, is the fact that especially in rural societies, and Tyrol is such a place, in the past, but also today, women are often trapped in traditional roles and have a much more difficult path towards equality than women living in more urban settings. For me, this creates a bit of a discrepancy. Celebrating an emancipated femininity while at the same time trying to preserve local traditions via local music seems not entirely compatible.
The first two of the album’s nine tracks, Vom Verlånga (About Desire) and Ois wås ma san (Everything We Are), will appeal to many an atmospheric black metal fan or folk black metal fan. A strong vocal performance, changing between harsh and clean singing and including piercing screams, is accompanied by a tempest of tremolo-picked guitars and fast drumming, creating a perfect black metal storm.
The atmosphere changes significantly with Heiliges Bluat (Holy Blood). Consisting chiefly of plucked string instruments and vocals, the piece calls monologues in theatre performances to mind. It certainly creates atmosphere, but since the majority of the potential audience won’t understand much, if anything, I’m not sure it will fulfil its intended purpose. Things get somewhat back on (the black metal) track with Hebamm (Midwife), but then turn pompous and partly kitschy on title track D’Muata (The Mother). While metal never was a stranger to drama, the black kind is not usually known for pomp. Pomp belongs in the realm of other metal subgenres and robs black metal of its fierceness and aggressiveness if incorporated.
Wehenkanon (Contraction canon) and Ausbruch (Erruption) sound more minimalistic again, featuring only vocals and percussion, Ausbruch even has an experimental character. Langtuttin and Stampa calls once more theater performances to mind before switching to a black metal soundscape. Mei Dianä Mei Bua ends the album with the guitars opting for grandiosity again.
Perchta’s second album D’Muata is certainly an unusual and interesting listen, featuring some outstanding, powerful tracks. I cannot help but think, however, that their compositions might be of a more consisting if less singular quality if they would try to liberate themselves of some traditional aspects in their music.
(7/10 Slavica)
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