Meslamtaea – Weemoedsklanken
Meslamtaea – Weemoedsklanken
Babylon Doom Cult Records
Release Date: 25/02/2022
Running Time: 40:57
Review by Wallace Magri
8.5/10
“Weemoedsklanken”, the fourth release from the Dutch based Black Metal band Meslamtaea, is very influenced by the Norwegian Second Wave of Black Metal, however exaggerating in brighter and soft solutions among the songs’ parts, taking advantage of avant-garde elements to the mixture, through fungelhorn, vocoder and saxophone on some musical passages, as heard on ‘Moegestreden’, which imposes a jazzy approach to the song. I must confess that I am not a fan of the inclusion of wind instruments on Heavy Metal songs, but I think I got the band’s point here, considering the freedom to flirt with unusual arrangements in the whole album concept.
Don’t get me wrong, I always believed that Black Metal is one of the Metal styles that are more accessible to have a dialog with other musical genres – Industrial music layers and textures, Symphonic elements, sometimes distilling Doom and Death Metal patterns in the song’s composition, etc. On “Weemoedsklanken” it felt to me that this kind of stylistic transgression brought an epic and Progressive flow to most of the songs. There are always unexpected conduction brakes, and sometimes there are a healthy transition between Black Metal and some Doom Metal to give to the song a dragged musical conduction. Sometimes it works, sometimes, it does not.
In the song ‘Verstoten’, the vocals are declaimed in a dismal vibe and then you hear the intervention of traditional Heavy Metal guitar riffs. Then we are relapsing in some atmospheric synth arias with lots of rhythm brakes, invoking then, the Second Wave of Black Metal at the end of the song. I think the band could have avoided the insertion of too many dissonant musical arrangements here, however.
Meslamtaea have definitely carried forward a peculiar stylistic option on “Weemoedsklanken”, which sounded to me like a band trying to find his own musical identity but, maybe, going way too far on the experimental direction, on a lot of occasions. Aligned to that, the contemporary production technique turned out everything way too clean to my ears, considering what I look for when I put on a Black Metal album. Maybe a dirtier mix and production could have given the songs a proper Black Metal ambience.
That said, if you are into making a little research about bands who are willing to break up the boundaries of the orthodox Black Metal, on “Weemoedsklanken”, you can get in touch with Meslamtaea’s proposal to bring a peculiar progressive jazzy vibe to the style. If you are up to that kind of musical incursion, check it out and just let me know your impression on that.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Weemoed
02. Rad des Tijds
03. Grauwe Muren
04. Schone Lei
05. Moegestreden
06. Nevelsluiers
07. Verstoten
08. Uiteengevallen
LINE-UP:
Floris – All Instruments, Vocals
Izzy – Flugelhorn
Ward – Vocals
Guest contributions:
Otto Kokke (Dead Neanderthals) – Saxophone
Kevin Kentie (Ibex Angel Order) – Vocals
Fraukje Van Burg (Doodswens) – Spoken Words
LINKS:
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