RSS Feed


REVERORUM IB MALACHT
De Mysteriis Dom Christi

The Ajna Offensive (2014)
Rating: 8.5/10

There are some very strange noises out in there in the heavy metal realm. One such metallic murmur is created by Reverorum Ib Malacht; a Swedish act consisting of two mysterious members, namely Karl Hieronymus Emil Lundin and Karl Axel Mikael Mårtensson, who between them so far have concocted several mesmerising potions in recorded form. The most important of these adventures are 2011’s debut album Urkaos and this new cauldron of strangeness.

This is obscure black metal that also slips into the darkly ambient mix where flutes are more than happy to meander between thorny pathways of dissonant guitars and orchestral effects toy with abrasive sculptures and cello-laced soundscapes of remoteness.

If any of you out there in metal world heard the debut album then you may have been impressed / scared / disappointed / confused (delete where applicable) by the eerie rumblings of this duo who began life as Reverorum lb Malacht back in 2005 out of Uppsala.

And so we come to this new experience which as expected is another outing to remote shores where the lands and elements are in fact constructed by avant-garde dabbling, murky backwater stirs and twisted arrangements all coated masterfully in that distant black metal veil of depressive, mournful ambience. De Mysteriis Dom Christi is a very peculiar record, and one which runs for over 70 minutes and leads astray into strange, weird and enthralling corners of a void we never knew existed.

Where so many so-called experimental black metal bands fail, these guys succeed because there is always so much going in within their cavernous halls of grace and oddness that one feels as though they’ve stepped into some surreal yet stuffy portal where the initial setting may appear as just a small, dingy dungeon, only to unveil itself as some vast, sprawling realm of surrealism and gloom. In fact, Reverorum Ib Malacht’s De Mysteriis Dom Christi is just too hard to review at times because of its peculiar nature. It belongs in that weird crevice within the black metal genre where atmospherics, ambience and metal combine, the result being an often scary, chilling foray through uncanny passages where vocal burps are mixed with tones that hint of perverse narration and occasional racing guitars are swamped by disturbing effects creating a sort of chamber of horrors.

At times there are moments where Reverorum lb Malacht transforms into a David Lynch-style soundtrack of the absurd, the haunting effects existing as mere whispers and murmurs of a terror that never truly reveals itself, but one which doesn’t need to, otherwise it may just disappoint. If anything, I’d remove these guys from the black metal category and put them alongside any type of bizarrely experimental outfit, ranging from John Zorn’s Naked City to anything that calls itself avant-garde, because you just never know whether you are with such an album, and that is credit to these surgeons of the weird.

Such is this voyage into religious transcendence that it seems pointless to mention that there are song titles called ‘Domini Est Terra’, ‘The Chaos Was Created Out Of Nothing’ or ‘Nw Thänthidh’ – which incidentally all run for over seven minutes – but this is the sort of record you just need to experience at least once in your life in order to realise that there are some truly talented people around attempting to create a soundtrack fitting for a place in the world / mind which has yet to be discovered.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share